Kissing Gaga
The story behind the smooch in the "Telephone" video
By Lesley Goldberg

How many queer artists/body builders can say they made the first move and kissed Lady Gaga? One (that we know of): Heather Cassils, a Silverlake, Calif.-based artist. Thanks to a call from a friend, she stole a kiss from pop music’s gender-bending diva as Lady Gaga’s “girlfriend in prison” in the viral hit video for “Telephone.”

The song was released in December, the video in March.

In an interview, Cassils talked about filming the video, which explores gender, power and control.

Q: How and when did you first connect with Lady Gaga?

A: It was a bizarre and organic unfolding of events that can only take place in Los Angeles. I run my own personal training business out of a small gym in Silverlake called Body Builders Gym. Another trainer called me from an audition telling me that a casting agent was looking for female bodybuilders. Apparently they could not find enough of them. I thanked her and told her that acting was not really “my thing” but when she told me it was to play a security guard in a woman’s prison for a Beyoncé/Lady Gaga video, I told her to give me the address because I find Beyoncé drool-worthy and I love Destiny’s Child. In the end I was cast as an inmate.

Q: What was filming the “Telephone” video like?

A: The video was shot over several days; I was there for one day. I had no idea about the story line, except that I was to be a security guard in a woman’s prison scene, which I thought was hilarious being the big fag that I am. After calling me across the prison yard, Lady Gaga checked me out and told me she wanted me to play her “girlfriend in prison.” She mulled over our interactions and said, “When I want someone I never go to them, they come to me … so you come to me.” She then told me I was to “touch her inappropriately.” I was stunned but just smiled and said, “OK, no problem.”

Q: Did you know she was going to kiss you?

A: I was not instructed to kiss her but because she had such a commanding air of almost pop royalty and because everyone was so star-struck by her, I felt that the most inappropriate thing to do was to sniff her, kiss her and get up in her space. Intimacy felt the most inappropriate. What surprised me is that she put her tongue in my mouth first. I just went with it.

Q: What sort of responses have you gotten to the video?

A: I’ve had over 15,000 people look at my artist Web site in one day and I now receive fan mail. Some of these letters are from very young queer and disenfranchised people who live in smaller cities with no support. Teens have written me from Germany, France and Scotland, telling me of their feelings of alienation and that by being the artist that I am, and by being outspoken about my beliefs that I have helped them alleviate their own personal feelings of shame around gender identity and sexuality. To me this is truly an honor and the ultimate service I can provide as a cultural producer.

Q: How did you first get involved with performance art?

A: I have always been an artist first. I simply use my body as a mode of expression, much like painters uses their brushes. In my artwork, I use my body as my medium and I address many subjects: gender representation being one of them. I see my body as a conceptual sculpture, a critique of the social pressure we feel to make our bodies conform to an aesthetic, gendered and cultural ideal.