'Emilia Pérez' wouldn't work without Karla Sofía Gascón. Now, she could make trans history
Karla Sofía Gascón’s performance in “Emilia Pérez” as a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery to become a woman has brought her global acclaim and set Gascón on a path that may make her the first openly transgender actor ever nominated for an Oscar
TORONTO (AP) — Karla Sofía Gascón’s performance in “Emilia Pérez” as a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery to become a woman has brought her global acclaim and set Gascón on a path that may make her the first openly transgender actor ever nominated for an Oscar. But on this morning, she’s feeling contemplative.
“I woke up with such a philosophical streak,” Gascón says, smiling. “In life, everything can be good or bad. We are a mix of so many things. There are things that make you happy and instead they make you sad, or the other way around.”
The dichotomies of life are a fitting subject for Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” a film that puts just about every genre — musical, crime thriller, melodrama — into a grandiose mixer, and, by sheer nerve, manages to coalesce into one of the year’s most memorable movie experiences. “Emilia Pérez,” which began streaming Wednesday on Netflix, is widely expected to be a best picture nominee.
At the center of the “Emilia Pérez” phenomenon – which began with a barn-storming premiere at the Cannes Film Festival — is Gascón who plays both the menacing cartel kingpin Manitas and the woman who emerges after Manitas fakes his own death, Emilia Pérez. Years later, Emilia contacts the lawyer who facilitated her transition (Zoe Saldaña) to her reunite with her wife (Selena Gomez) and their children.
