Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez is a movie that occurs once a decade. His genre-blending movie boasts four star-studded performances from Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz. Audiard swung for the fences and knocked it out of the ballpark. We had the opportunity to participate in a press conference featuring the four leads.
Emilia Perez follows the story of cartel leader Emilia, who enlists an underappreciated lawyer to help fake her death so that Emilia can live as her authentic self. This ignites a powerful journey of four remarkable women pursuing their own variation of happiness.
Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz discuss creating Emilia Perez.
Moderator: In your wildest dreams, when you attended a Disney open call, did you think your life and career would ultimately lead you to Jessi and Emilia Perez?
Selena Gomez: I don’t think I ever thought that I would be here, but I’m genuinely so grateful because this is a role I’ve been waiting for for a very long time. And it was really incredible to be able to sink my teeth into something, and it honestly feels like it’s just the beginning.
Moderator: You call yourself a sci-fi geek who happens to dress nicely. So, how did the sci-fi geek end up in Emilia Perez?
Zoe Saldana: I’m an artist at heart, and Emilia Perez gave me an opportunity to reconnect with parts of me that I had forever sort of said goodbye to and yet found myself in the last years of my life yearning to have just an ounce of what that felt like.
You know, when you’re young, you’re fearless, and little did you know that when your folks are keeping you busy, and they’re putting you in dance, and in art, and in tennis, if you’re lucky enough to have families that can
afford that and do that, most of the times you’re able to use these skills for something else in your life. And it catapulted me into a career, you know, where there was an abundance of roles regarding active women in action and science fiction.
And I do have an affinity for that, but I am a native New Yorker, so I have jazz hands in my DNA. And I’m a dancer at heart, and I will forever be a dancer. You know, playing a character like Rita where she lives a lot on the inside. This is a woman who does not have the courage or the strength to speak up and be her own advocate. She can be an advocate for others, but she can’t speak for herself. That was a very familiar woman in my eyes, a woman who was desperate for change and visibility at all costs.
And I just wanted to know what it was like to be in her skin. The breath in the movie are those breaks of song and dance where you can see how they truly feel and think. And I just thought that that jump from reality and surreality was what made this movie very special to me, and obviously, it encompassed — I think I just made up that word, but I was able to add so many parts of me.
Moderator: What is the relevance of Epifania’s name, and how does it relate to this story (of Emilia Perez)?
Adriana Paz: I think it was the right name for that character because Epifania is like an Epifania for herself and also for Emilia. And she’s like a kind of love presentation, and she’s been surprised for life. Life is giving her the opportunity to be loved and cared for. And to love and care for others, you know. She’s been through a lot of pain and violence, and that’s also the importance of this character because she represents many women in Mexico, Latin America, and all over the world that is going through a lot of domestic violence.
So, it was very important for me to portray this character. Although she has been going through all this violence and tough things, she is able to smile, have hope, and embrace this opportunity to be loved and loved by Emilia.
Moderator: Karla, your character undergoes a transformation in this film. Some audiences were surprised to learn that you played Manitas before Emilia’s transformation.
Karla Sofía Gascón: So, constructing a character like this definitely took a lot of work on my part. But this would not have been possible without the support of this wonderful team behind the scenes and all these wonderful actresses here. It takes teamwork to make this happen. And, of course, it takes the lead of our director. Because otherwise, you know, this character would be nothing. It would be just a joke. And often, audiences see us on screen, and they think that the actors do everything.
So it took a lot of discussion. The first and most important question for me with the director was, what was Emilia’s reason for wanting this transformation? Was it because she wanted to run away from justice? Or was it because it was her truth? Because that really changed the film’s meaning, it would have been just a superficial comedy. And so, for me, it was very important to know that. And I think that in the end, the best decision was made.
Moderator: I was wondering how much time you guys had in rehearsal. And it seemed like some of it was sung live, so I’m also interested in hearing about that.
Gomez: I was one of the last to be cast. So, to be honest, I probably had a little less rehearsal time. But it was really, really fun. I would say, yeah, that was a big surprise, but I appreciated that Jacques didn’t wanna use necessarily any autotune. He wanted to record us every time we did the number. And ultimately, he used a lot of those vocals in the movie. And I thought it was really raw. And I appreciated that it didn’t sound perfect.
Saldana: My rehearsals were extensive. I was finishing up a show in North Africa, and I think I wrapped on the 2nd of March. I flew on the 3rd. And on the 4th, we were already in the recording studio. And so from March until we began shooting, I would say, until late April, it was a constant rehearsal, five, six days a week. And I was really nervous. It had been over 20 years since I walked into a dance studio, so I adapted my brain to understand and to sort of feed information to my muscles. It’s a very technical thing.
My goal was to arrive on the day of shooting. During our rehearsals with Jacques and Karla, I realized Jacques is expecting preparation, but he also expects an experiment. We have to be very present to find things that will surprise us. And though that’s the most exciting place to be as an artist, being allowed to collaborate with your director, you still want to come totally prepared.
I think I had an average of five to seven weeks of rehearsal. And even while we were shooting, I was constantly, you know, learning the choreographies for Vaginoplastia, for — El Mal was, like, that one thing when they told us, I think it was like two weeks into rehearsing, they’re like, “We’re going to shoot this amazing choreography, like, for El Mal.” And I was like, “When? When are we gonna shoot it?” And they’re like, “Oh, like eight weeks from now.”
I’m like, “We gotta start yesterday rehearsing this.” [laugh] So, we would do that. And then Jacques would show up, by surprise, during our rehearsals of the choreography. And, you know, he would look at something, and then he would wanna kind of be like, “No, it’s too much. Let’s change it. Let’s shave it down. Let’s add more.” So, it was always an element of surprise and absolute present combined with, you know, preparation. In reality, it’s everything that a theater [laugh] is like. So, it was a wonderful experience, but definitely not a walk in the park, for sure, which is probably why I thought it was so special.
Emilia Perez hits select theaters on November 1 and will be available on Netflix on November 13
