Not a fan! Patti LuPone slammed Madonna‘s acting abilities during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Tuesday, May 9.
The Broadway legend, 68, and the pop superstar, 58, both played Argentinian First Lady Eva Perón in Evita; LuPone won a Tony Award for her role in the original 1979 Broadway production, while Madonna won a Golden Globe for the 1996 film adaptation.
During Tuesday’s WWHL, Cohen asked LuPone to share her thoughts on Madonna’s performance in Evita, and she didn’t hold back. “I was on the treadmill. You know when MTV used to have music videos, right? I saw, I believe it was ‘Buenos Aires,’ and I thought it was a piece of s–t,” she said. “Madonna is a movie killer. She’s dead behind the eyes. She cannot act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be in film or on stage. She’s a wonderful performer for what she does, but she’s not an actress.”
LuPone also told viewers that she and the “Vogue” singer have never had a conversation about their respective performances in Evita, though they have crossed paths. “She was downstairs at the Mitzi Newhouse [Theater in New York] when I was upstairs doing Anything Goes in the Vivian Beaumont, and a press agent actually put a sign up that there was only one diva allowed in this theater at a time,” LuPone said. “It wasn’t me! It was the press agent that did it. I don’t know whether she ever found out about it. I did meet her after her opening night party, and the only thing that Madonna has ever said to me was, ‘I’m taller than you.'”
In general, the theater vet isn’t a fan of many film adaptations of stage musicals. “I don’t know why people assume they can do musicals or make movie musicals without ever having been involved with the process of making a musical,” she said, noting that she didn’t enjoy 2012’s Les Misérables. “That’s the thing I don’t understand.”
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen airs on Bravo Sundays through Thursdays at 11 p.m. ET.
