Films like “I Saw the TV Glow” and “The People’s Joker” have made trans narratives a big part of arthouse cinema this year. That direction continues this fall with the musical crime comedy “Emilia Pérez,” a film about a drug cartel leader who looks to leave her former life behind by transitioning.
Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the titular cartel leader, told TheWrap’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman at our 2024 TIFF Studio sponsored by Moët & Chandon and Boss Design that she searches for roles that are as far removed from her real-life experience as possible — and what could be more far removed than playing a drug lord?
“I think that part of our job as actors and actresses is really to be able to fully understand human beings and to be able to promote an evolution in the people that watch us thanks to this understanding,” she said. “So for me, the more a character is different from the way I am, the better, the happier I am, the more interesting it is for me. If I were to play a character that is too close to my own life, I wouldn’t find it as interesting or challenging.”
Gascón is joined in the film by a pair of Hollywood heavyweights: Zoë Saldaña as Rita, the weary lawyer who makes a living representing criminals like Emilia; and Selena Gomez as Emilia’s estranged wife, Jessi.
As Rita, Saldaña had to perform several musical numbers in Spanish, with director Jacques Audiard telling her to see the film’s story about these three women as an opera. The actress says she welcomed the role as an “all-encompassing journey” that allowed her to get back in touch with the singing and dancing she did before her professional acting career began.
“I started as a ballerina when I was a kid. Being a New Yorker, obviously that evolves into musicals and you do them in school, and you do them for recital and little companies,” Saldaña recalled. “But then when your career takes over, acting becomes this centerfold and I thought I was never going to get an opportunity to reconnect with with all the parts of me that I consider are my craft. Jacques gave me that opportunity in the form of Rita.”
Netflix will release “Emilia Pérez” on Nov. 8. Watch the interview in the video above.
