The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sat down with
Emilia Pérez
star Karla Sofía Gascón ahead the film’s Netflix debut.
A cartel kingpin gives up one life to begin a new one in director Jacques Audiard’s latest.
During this interview, Gascón discusses shaping her character by collaborating with the Audiard, emphasizes the importance of generosity on set, and more.

When Emilia Pérez celebrated its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this year, not one, not two, but all four of the film’s leading ladies took home an award for Best Actress. Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Adriana Paz, and in the title role, Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón lit up the screen in writer-director Jacques Audiard’s Netflix musical.

In the movie, Gascón plays Manitas Del Monte, a cartel drug lord who requests the help of a lawyer, Rita (Saldaña), to disappear. In fact, they want to transform their life completely by faking their death and undergoing gender-affirming surgery to finally live life openly as a woman, the titular Emilia Pérez. Years later, she requests Rita’s help again in order to atone for the life she left behind.

During this interview, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff talks with Gascón about the ways she helped craft the character of Emilia with Audiard. They also discuss the pressures placed on men and women in society, and how those standards play into the story. Gascón also emphasizes the importance of generosity on a film set. You can watch the full conversation in the video above or read the interview transcript below.

Karla Sofía Gascón Helped Shape the Character of ‘Emilia Pérez’
“I asked him about some things that I felt needed to be adjusted.”

PERRI NEMIROFF: One of my absolute favorite things about this film is that it doesn’t fit into one specific genre. But, I know that that can make it very difficult to fully wrap your mind around what a movie is going to be from a script and a script alone, so what were some of your biggest burning questions for Jacques at the very beginning in terms of figuring out the tone and vibe of the film?

KARLA SOFÍA GASCÓN: My first question that I asked him in Paris when he asked for my comments was, what was the reason that Emilia wanted to transform? Was it because she wanted to get away from justice, or was that her true desire? Then secondly, I asked him about some things that I felt needed to be adjusted from what he had initially written about Emilia and what the character becomes afterwards. I’m not going to say what she turns into because that would be a spoiler, but when the character was first written on the page, it was a lot harder, a lot harsher, but it also had a lot more comedy. So, those were our first exchanges about it. But then my other burning question is, “Okay, how are we going to understand each other? Because I speak Spanish, you speak French, neither of us speak English.” And his answer was telepathy. And the other thing is, Emilia’s sexuality at the beginning was less clear in the first draft. I’m not going to say what it is, but it was much less clear.

Image via Netflix

I know you expressed the importance of having one actress play the entirety of this character’s arc, and our press notes also delve deeply into how men and women in society are treated differently. Can you tell me a little bit about how you wanted to shape Manitas and Emilia to reflect how society puts different pressures on men and women?

GASCÓN: This is a very interesting point that I talk about all the time, which is there’s a violence associated to men and love and care associated to the female. If you look at a soccer match on a Sunday, you would see that. I don’t know why it is that men are associated with violence and women with love. What’s interesting here is men physically are freer than women, but mentally, more restricted, and women mentally have more freedom, but they have a lot more restrictions physically, and they have this tendency towards perfection. So, why is it that the masculine manifests so much more violence? Boys get conditioned from very early on not to cry, not to feel emotions, not to feel anything, so when that happens, human beings turn to violence because that’s the only thing they can give to the world is what they have gotten, which is a lot of hate. In the end, that is Manitas and Emilia, because Manitas is immersed into this deep violence, but is a person who wants to feel.

This Is the Kind of Leader Karla Sofía Gascón Wanted to Be for the ‘Emilia Pérez’ Ensemble
“You have to give the others the space to give the best work.”
Image via Netflix

4:38 Related Zoe Saldaña Was Stunned by Selena Gomez’s ‘Emilia Pérez’ Transformation “This woman is filled with abandonment and recklessness and rage.”

I’ve watched a lot of other interviews to prep and all of your co-stars sing your praises non-stop in terms of how you set the tone and everyone followed your lead on set. What are some things you strive to do as a headliner of this movie to both serve your own performance but also make sure you’re teeing up everyone around you for success as well?

GASCÓN: Actors and actresses who just work for themselves, they are confused, because for the best work to be, you have to elicit that in the other. You have to give the others the space to give the best work. You do that for the one in front of you. If you don’t do that, if you don’t work for the other actor in front of you, then you’re just an egocentric person who just wants to be seen on screen and be told how pretty you are.

[Laughs] That’s very accurate. It’s such a respectful way to describe it, to describe them as being confused.

GASCÓN: Not only actors — a lot of people in the world! [Laughs]

Emilia Pérez releases on Netflix in the US on November 13.

In Mexico, a lawyer receives an unexpected offer to help a feared cartel boss retire from his business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamed of being.Cast Karla Sofía Gascón , Zoe Saldana , Selena Gomez , Adriana Paz , Edgar Ramirez , Mark Ivanir , Eduardo Aladro , Emiliano Edmundo Hasan Jalil , James Gerard , Eric Geynes , Agathe Bokja , Chun-Ting Lin , Stéphane Ly-Cuong , Line Phé , Pascal Toussirot , Karla Lazo Runtime 130 Minutes Writers Jacques Audiard , Thomas Bidegain , Léa Mysius Expand

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