She may be Queen of the Hollywood franchise, but Zoe Saldaña has officially gone back to her roots. Having headed up the Avatar movies and starred in both Star Trek and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she has returned to her love of singing and dancing and her first language in Netflix's Spanish musical movie Emilia Pérez.
Set in Mexico – but filmed partially in Paris – the film tells the story of a Mexican drug cartel leader Manitas Del Monte, who seeks out lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) to help him fake his own death, seek out gender affirming surgery and to start a new life as Emilia Pérez. Five years later, Rita is contacted by Emilia to bring her children and former wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) to stay, with Emilia masquerading as Manitas' distant aunt. Can she keep up the ruse to remain close to her family? Trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón plays the roles of both Manitas and Emilia, wearing heavy prosthetic make up to embody the former.
This week, both Zoe and Selena were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances in Emilia Pérez. The film broke records by receiving 10 in total, double the amount that the likes of Wicked, Anora and The Substance received. Karla Sofía also made history as the first out trans woman to be nominated as a lead actress in a film at the Golden Globes.
GLAMOUR sat down with Zoe mere days before she was nominated, where she opened up about what a nod would mean to her, as well as her personal connection to championing the trans community, the joys of working with Selena and Karla Sofía on such an ambitious film and the importance of women and trans people being given space on set.
What drew you to the role, what was it about the character of Rita that speaks to you?
At first it was [Emilia Pérez director] Jacques Audiard. I've been a fan of his work since as long as I can remember… What drew me to Rita was how her environment in the beginning of the movie was familiar territory for me. I experienced her experiences at a much milder level – the sensations of feeling overlooked and burned out, and feeling at times like my environment was suffocating me because I wasn't living to my fullest potential. And it was always over things that I probably couldn't change myself and things that I couldn't control, and Rita was in this place.
I felt I had never played someone like that, and I desperately wanted to inhabit that kind of experience on a personal level. I was also given the opportunity to reconnect with parts of me that I felt I had left behind as life evolved and I grew, not just as a person, but also as a professional artist. I had this desire to reconnect with dance and with music, and unconsciously, I also wanted to reconnect with my roots, which is a very strong part of my identity. I'm a first generation daughter of immigrants. Spanish is my first language. The role of Rita was an all-encompassing role for me.
How did you feel about telling a story of trans identity, during a time where there is such hate and controversy around this community?
That was the icing on the cake. Not only was I going to work with one of my idols, and stretch my wings as an artist, but it was going to be around a conversation that is so important for me. I have a family member who's trans and who's raised us, he's made us see so much about who he truly is, and here I was working with this amazing actress who has had a journey in terms of how much harder she has to work to get a seat at the table. To get respect and visibility, to be seen and be respected for who she is, and and she worked so hard, she gave so much of herself, and she's so talented, Karla Sofía Gascón. I really felt fortunate that I was going to be a part of something that was already feeling special to me, because it had personal meaning to me. But never in a million years was I ever expecting it to have such a profound impact on so many people.
Karla is an absolute force in the film as Emilia – what was she like to work with? You guys established such a beautiful bond on screen.
It was incredible. It's what actors like myself want to do. We wish for those moments, not just to work with incredible directors and be a part of beautiful stories, but also get to work with impactful actors. And I feel like Karla Sofía was extraordinary.
She was a force of nature – playing two characters that I can only imagine, maybe at times, represented a great deal of pain for her. But she's an artist, and though people may think that she probably has a lot in common with the characters that she's playing, she doesn't feel that way. She doesn't feel like she has anything in common with them half of the time. That's just a testament of how truly talented she is. She transformed and became these two people – sometimes both in one day of shooting.
What was it like working with Selena?
Working with Selena Gomez was fascinating. She's someone that has been through a lot and has shared so much about herself and her journey for the sake of helping so many people, and she's accomplished that. But what people are going to discover with the work that she put into Jessi and Emilia Pérez is just how truly talented she is and how sincerely thoughtful she is about her craft. She's so talented, it's incredible. And how someone that has grown up in the spotlight still remains so grounded, so peaceful, and so outspoken about mental health, about art, respecting people for their choices, is just remarkable.
How did you cultivate the female solidarity needed on set to tell this story?
At the helm was this complete gentleman [Jacques Audiard]. What he does is what so many men should be doing, which is just giving space. Allowing other people, especially women, to take up their own space, and for that to not intimidate him and not make him feel he has to control a narrative in some way. Jacques is a leader, and he's immaculate at not getting in his own way – so that inspires you to do the same for yourself.
As awards season approaches, the Golden Globes, the Oscars, what would it mean to be nominated for telling this story?
I don't think I can answer that question without getting emotional. For so many years, I convinced myself that I didn't need to be seen to be successful and to sort of own my evolution as an artist. The reality is, as an artist, what draws us to art? What draws us to want to make art? It's this desire to connect with people, and part of that connection is being seen for what you put out there, for how hard you work. And if I am recognised for this, it would mean so much to me. It means that this entire time I was on the right path, if it led me here, and I matter, and that's really important to have that acknowledgement, that validation... That repurpose is so needed for an artist, it's deeply needed, actually.
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Sisterhood is a huge theme of the film throughout, have there been times in your life where you’ve leant on sisterhood to get you through difficult times?
Sisterhood is vital. To me, it's one of the basic needs of life, like water, like air, like Earth. I need connection with women. I'm one of three sisters, I grew up in a family of matriarchs. Who would I be today, or ever, if it wasn't for the women that have carried me on their shoulders, and continuously carry me on their shoulders? They raise me, they educate me, they guide me, they teach me how to be a better person every day by just being good people.
It is easy for me to recognise environments of sisterhood, and I just unconsciously gravitate towards them. And I remember for so many years, [I was] indirectly encouraged to believe that being the only female in a sea of men makes you better than every woman around you, and that can get you only so far, but it starts really quickly to feel like a very lonely place, because we need to connect the same way.
Men need brotherhoods. Women, we need each other to make each other stronger. We advocate for each other, and we celebrate each other. That's exactly what the set of Emilia Pérez was like.
What is empowering to you in your life?
Sometimes it's as superficial as just forcing myself out of bed and putting on red lipstick, believe it or not, doing the contrary of what you may be feeling if you know that it is going to be better for you, is a form of empowerment. Another spiritual form of empowerment is just complimenting and seeing other women for who they truly are. It takes two sentences to save someone's day by just letting them know that what they're doing is meaningful to you in some way. Another form of empowerment is saying no when you need to say no, when you feel the need to say no and something doesn't feel right for you, respecting and honouring that feeling and going with it is a strong form of empowerment.
What do you hope Emilia Pérez’s legacy is in terms of representing the stories of trans people and their families?
The decisions that trans people make for their bodies shouldn't be the only reason why we define them. They're not defined by that, it belongs to them, and they have every right to exercise whatever journey they need to go through to find themselves and to feel more like themselves. I wish for the trans community to be valued for their attributes other than their identity. I want to normalise seeing people, not just trans people, people of colour, disabled people in all general spaces, and for us to normalise walking among them.
Why is it important that Emilia Pérez is a musical, what does that bring to such an important story?
I think it's what made it special. If this movie had been stuck in one genre, I think it would have been a really heavy topic to digest, and it would have given the audience a harder time to connect with it. Sometimes it's alleviating to hear someone's rage through a musical number, for some reason, it just makes it more digestible. So I feel that the musicality aspect of Emilia was the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down.
What was it like to reconnect with music and dance, as that was such a key part of your early career?
It felt like coming home, it really did. I've been missing home a lot. And as a native New Yorker, and as a child, I grew up dancing, I feel like you're born with jazz hands, and you spend half your life unjazzing your hands. It gave me an opportunity to revisit parts of my life that are the reason why I'm here. So picking them back up just felt medicinal to me.
Emilia Pérez is available to watch on Netflix now.
