“Emilia Perez” : Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana & Karla Sofía Gascón : the fantastic three
Telling the tale of the gender transition from male to female of a Mexican drug lord through the lens of an association helping victims of gang violence, the newest film by Jacques Audiard was first conceived of as an opera-project adapted from Écoute (2018), a short story by Boris Razon. The films is actually a thriller-imbued musical with feminist undertones, reminiscent of A Room in Town by Jacques Demy – in a more martial vein – or of an Almodóvar film that would have been dried out of its sentimentalism. The score was composed by Clément Ducol, its lyrics written in French – then translated – by singer Camille, while the choreography was created by Damien Jalet, and the costumes by Anthony Vaccarello – as Saint Laurent is a co-producer in the project.
Alongside the main part – portrayed by transgender actress Katia Sofia Gascón – we discover in this film the character of a lawyer (Zoe Saldana) meeting Emilia in her new life and that of the drug lord’s wife (Selena Gomez, with bleach-blonde hair). We meet the three fantastic actresses on the terrace of the Marriott hotel, at the exact spot where we had first encountered Selena five years ago, as she had come to Cannes to present The Dead Don’t Die by Jim Jarmusch. The chemistry between the three women is visible. The actress from Madrid barely seems intimidated by the two American stars alongside her: she’s the one letting everyone speak around the table, between jokes in her uncertain English and answers given in Spanish.
It is quite easy to draw parallels between Karla Sofia Gascón’s career and the part Audiard is providing her with. After a first life lead as an actor, she transitioned six years ago, and this film was her first part as an actress: “Jacques saw something in me. I think what makes me closer to the character is the refusal to lose her loved ones, which can sometimes come along the process of transitioning. That being said, before transitioning, I was absolutely nothing like the drug lord I am portraying here. But playing that part was incredibly fun.”
While Selena denies having anything to do with her character: “she’s such a rebel and toxic, the complete opposite of me”, Zoe Saldana did on the contrary see herself in the part of the lawyer : “I liked the fact that she was desperately looking for an opportunity to change her life; I could identify with this wish.” Through the dancing scenes, the actress from Avatar shines through with her physical dedication to the part and her precision, two qualities she honed while working while filming blockbusters using CGI, but also during her life before cinema: “I come from drama, so what I am doing in this film is kind of lige going back home.”
Filmed around Paris, the film gave its cast the opportunity to taste the French way of living, an experience that Selena called “life-changing”: “It was my first time living in Paris and I loved the city, my small apartment; the people were so nice. I could finally live a ‘normal’ life in France, which was very dear to me. And I ate so much bread!”
One last question before we let the actresses go to their next interview, which is the occasion for Karla to conclude on some more militant words on the matter of the representation of transgender people on the screen: “Every actor and actresses has the capacity to act as anyone. But currently, transgender people are finally gaining visibility, and it is necessary that transgender characters be portrayed by transgender people. Otherwise we’re just stepping back, when white people portrayed blacks people while using blackface. Once transgender and cisgender actors and actresses are on an equal level, I’m not opposed to the idea that a cisgender person play a transgender person, and vice versa. But we’re still very far from having reached equality. I’m tired of only getting parts of transgender women that are sex workers. It’s such a cliché, which finally only ends up stigmatizing our community. I dream of getting the part of someone working in a bakery, or a fish shop, without having the matter of my identity being mentioned.”