Lady Gaga throws herself 100% into everything she does, and her starring role in the upcoming movie House of Gucci is no exception.  Gaga tells British Vogue that while portraying Patrizia Reggiani — who was convicted of putting a hit on her ex, Maurizio Gucci — she went so deep into the character that she had a hard time coming back out again.

“I lived as [Reggiani] for a year and a half,” Gaga tells the magazine. “And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that…[even] off-camera. I never broke. I stayed with her.”

“It was nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde,” she continues. “I instantly had to dye my hair, and I started to live in a way whereby anything that I looked at, anything that I touched, I started to take notice of where and when I could see money.”

However, Gaga admits, “I had some psychological difficulty at one point towards the end of filming. I was either in my hotel room, living and speaking as Reggiani, or I was on set, living and speaking as her. I remember I went out into Italy one day…to take a walk…and I panicked. I thought I was on a movie set.”

But throughout the experience, Gaga says, “Every minute of every day, I thought of my ancestors in Italy and what they had to do so that I could have a better life.”

She adds, “I just wanted to make them proud, which is why I made the decision to make the performance about a real woman and not about the idea of a bad woman.”

House of Gucci opens November 24.  Gaga’s cover story is on newsstands Friday.