olivie strenuous: Lady Gaga Collaborator Jonas Akerlund Expects 'Great' Things From Her

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Lady Gaga Collaborator Jonas Akerlund Expects 'Great' Things From Her

'She can probably do anything she wants,' 'Paparazzi' and 'Telephone' director tells us at SXSW.
By Kara Warner

Lady Gaga
Photo: Kevin Mazur/ WireImage

After the mostly positive reviews of Lady Gaga's first music-video directorial effort on "Marry the Night". It's fair to assume that we fans can expect more Gaga-directed clips in the near future.

When MTV News caught up with her "Paparazzi" and "Telephone" director Jonas Åkerlund recently during his SXSW appearance for his new ensemble dark comedy "Small Apartments," we asked him for his thoughts on Gaga's future as a director, should she choose to direct all of her videos from here on out.

"She can probably do anything she wants," he said. "So that's probably going to be great."

And would Åkerlund make himself available for advice, should Gaga ever be in need of it?

"Of course. I would never turn her down," he said, at which point his "Apartments" star and funnyman Matt Lucas ("Bridesmaids") asked a question of his own.

"Is her real name Lady Gaga?"

"Yes," Åkerlund answered with a smile.

"Wow," Lucas responded with astonishment. "There's a fact for you MTV fans."

Although Åkerlund didn't mention any more work with Gaga at this time, the busy director is still fully in the mix of the world of music videos.

"I may do a couple music videos and I've done quite a few since 'Small Apartments,' actually. The last one I did was a Duran Duran video, but there's a few coming up too."

"Are you going to do the Osmonds video?" Lucas asked cheekily. "That's what they're asking."

"Maybe," Åkerlund responded, playing along with Lucas' joke. "I'm hoping to."

For her part, Gaga has said that she's always been heavily involved in the creative processes behind all her work, including the direction of her music videos.

"I know it's my directorial debut, but I've really created everything I've ever done in my career," she said. "I really didn't do anything differently on this video that I didn't do on the 'Telephone' video or the 'Paparazzi' video or the 'Bad Romance' video. I hope my fans will take from this the progression that you have to trust yourself to make mistakes."

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