The first time I meet Karla Sofia Gascon is on a London stage.
She turns 180 degrees and heads back across the stage.
The clapping becomes uncertain.
Karla Sofía GascónAndrew Zaeh
They dont really know her.
They havent seen the film yet.What is happening?
Its true that these event interviews are, by necessity, fairly brief.
But then, suddenly, she hugs me tightly.Oh, I think.
Thank you, she says, squeezing my arm, meaning it.
The audience erupts into cheers, and as she walks away, she gives them a wave.
she calls to them.
A few days later in New York, we meet again at the photo shoot for this piece.
In front of the camera, Gascon twirls in a silky, black, Lanvin gown.
The Madrid-born actress laughs and cracks jokes constantly with the photographer and his crew.
Gascon, who lives in Mexico, has long been known for her roles in telenovelas.
Then, just a few years ago, at age 46, she came out as a trans woman.
She wondered if shed ever work again.
She battled endless abuse and online trolling.
With the world watching, could she be the first trans actress ever to win an Academy Award?
InEmilia Perez, Mexican cartel leader Manitas Del Monte dreams of transitioning to live as her authentic self.
Its a thriller, a drama and a comedy of sorts, all at once.
And, as if that doesnt transcend enough genre barriers, its also a musical.
Another actress might have baulked at Audiards vision for her, but Gascon jumped in with both feet.
She didnt consider herself a singer, but she would learn.
For Gascon, that festival premiere would signal another new beginning.
She knew then that something special was about to happen.
She went into the bathroom and quietly sobbed.
Now, as we sit for this interview, she is pensive as she recalls that moment.
Im feeling a lot of responsibility, not only for my work, but for this movement around me.
I represent, obviously, the minority that I represent.
I think thats maybe one of the very important groups of people that I represent.
And I hope that I represent hope for my colleagues.
But, as Gascon says, Theres this darkness versus light.
In the wake of that win at Cannes, right-wing French politician Marion Marechal made transphobic remarks.
Gascon responded by engaging a lawyer.
Gascon mulls now over her decision to clap back at such hate speech.
I am a warrior, she says.
I love to take on the fight.
I like to confront it.
And I did that quite a lot in my past.
And I knew that was going to happen.
Her mission when she responds to such people, she says, is to raise awareness.
Ive done a lot of trying to educate people, to make them respect me.
Im that frontline warrior.
But she is philosophical too.
I realize that people will only learn from their own experience.
They will only learn when they themselves want to.
And if they dont want to learn, then theyre not going to.
And at some point, I have to put that aside.
I cant change peoples minds by pushing my own convictions and ideas.
We feel it like its our own.
Gascon says in the past, shes felt very critical of her work, but withEmilia Perezit feels different.
I feel like this is the first time that I can say, you know what?
She pauses, thinking of Audiards French and finds the word for hat.
she says, and laughs.
It was Pierre-Marie Dru, the films music supervisor, who first mentioned Gascons name to Audiard.
What struck me in both cases is that I had been wrong about the characters ages in the screenplay.
In the screenplay, Rita was 25, Manitas was 30, Epifania was 17.
And when I discovered Karla Sofia, I saw before me a mature woman who already had history.
If it was transition on its own, I wouldnt have thought of that.
The film about just transition is for someone else to make, not me.
Before shooting, Gascon asked Audiard how they would communicate between her Spanish and his French.
He told her they would use telepathy.
In practice, they really did seem to understand each other intuitively.
Look, Jacques is very intelligent, Gascon says.
I think hes smart enough to not need anyone.
Hes so smart that he picks up on what others can provide for him and can inform him on.
I think hes absolutely wonderful.
Yet Audiard was also very open to Gascons thoughts and opinions.
However, she admits she might have gotten a little carried away at times.
I was really taking on that role.
And of course theres a story there.
Gascon wrote her suggestions to Audiard.
Theres a lot of emails back and forth that we had.
He would come to me, and he would be like, I have this idea.
Can you help me make it more concrete?
And sure enough, in the film, Emilias home features an arcade-style ski machine.
Audiard seems to relish the memory of all that back-and-forth.
Shes an actress who has a great deal of authority, he says.
I truly love her.
She probably had a knowledge of that character that was deeper than mine.
She knew more about the character than I did, which is very pleasant for a director.
And she has lived things that she could tell me about.
That consideration and sensitivity was why Audiard had not initially imagined Gascon in the Manitas role.
Karla absolutely wanted to do both, he says.
It was me who was hesitant.
Im not in the mind of a trans woman.
I dont know what trauma is there.
But for Gascon it was an obvious choice.
I honestly thought that I would do a better job in that first stage of the character.
I liked it more.
I think, as an actress, it was a lot more interesting.
How could I pass up the opportunity to not take on the full role?
I think it wouldve been lazy of me.
And to be honest, I think the result is wonderful.
He wanted them to be polar opposites.
He wanted the change to be absolutely drastic, a change that nobody could understand.
Its really likeBeauty and the Beast.
He wanted that jot down of contrast.
That high contrast was also down to Audiards crafts team.
They were all so wonderful.
Hair and makeup, [costume designer] Virginie Montel, who I love profoundly.
And of course, he chose the ugliest one that we did not understand.
They took molds of my face, chest, arms.
They had this chest that had little tiny boobies with hair on it that they didnt use.
They just did all kinds of crazy things to me.
Although the film is comedic in parts, it was vital that the choice to transition was seen seriously.
The scene with Rita when Manitas wants to become a woman.
I was scared people would laugh.
It was really tough.
He looked me in the face, and he said, Make it so that they dont.
And I think at the end of the day, they watched the sequence, and nobody laughed.
Gascon also felt strongly that Emilia would not be violent.
She worried about a scene where Emilia confronts Jessi.
In the script, it was written that Emilia would hit her and would knock her out.
And working with major Hollywood stars like Saldana and Gomez was a new experience.
It was tricky because I didnt know the world that they were coming from, she says.
I didnt know how they were going to come in.
I was a little bit worried about how I myself was going to be acting around them.
I think that wouldve been detrimental to my own work and to their work as well.
And it wouldve been detrimental to the film at the end of the day.
Her approach paid off, she says.
With Adriana, it was a little bit different because we come from a very similar world.
So, it was a little bit easier.
So, I really wanted to integrate her as much as I could.
They were so wonderful.
For example, Zoe has this incredible ability to really focus in.
Shes very strict with her work.
Its something that I really admire, that I wish I could take on myself.
Plus, shes a wonderful singer and dancer.
Then we have Selena who is very present in the moment.
She really listens and I love that about her.
With Adriana, she is also a star in her own right.
Shes won the Ariel Award in Mexico many times, so shes already recognized in her career.
I was really there to learn from them as much as I could.
Saldana recalls observing an enormous respect between Audiard and Gascon.
It was incredible to witness an artist who went so deep into creating a character like Emilia Perez.
Her favorite aspect of working with Gascon was creating the evolution of their characters close, almost family-level friendship.
The relationship between them is complex, but its also a beautiful journey that you watch unfold.
Not to mention she truly is so funny.
I am glad everyone is seeing this side of her as well.
All three of Gascons co-stars are accomplished singers, so Gascon had her work cut out.
For the first part the register is very low.
So, Im sure that they had to use equalizers and mixers.
Camille probably had to combine my voice for the really high-pitched vibratos.
But they must have recorded my voices thousands of times, just every breath I took.
But they did such wonderful work, not just with me.
I think the music in general is prize-deserving.
Later that night in SoHo, I see Gascon again, at anEmilia Perezreception.
Earlier that day shed told me shed always felt like something of a mystic.
But that is a tremendous effort for her.
I think of her reply when I asked her what she thought the film was about.
Its loves triumph, she said.
Emilia Perezis in theaters November 1st.
