'Emilia Pérez' star Karla Sofía Gascón went all in on her transformative role in the genre-defying film
Transgender actor Karla Sofía Gascón discusses her titular role in "Emilia Pérez," a genre-defying musical about a cartel boss who enlists a young lawyer to help achieve a dramatic gender transition.
From “Kokomo City” and “Crossing” to “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Mutt,” the last few years have brought a series of cinematic works that challenge what films about transgender subjects can or should be. Director Jacques Audiard’s genre-defying musical, “Emilia Pérez” — a stylized imagining of how a life of crime could be at least temporarily transformed by becoming one’s true self — may be the most ambitious yet.
At the heart of the largely Spanish-language film, co-written by Audiard and featuring a flurry of darkly lit song-and-dance numbers, is former telenovela star Karla Sofía Gascón, who signed up to play the titular Emilia without knowing much about the French auteur’s previous works, which include acclaimed multilingual indies like “A Prophet” and “Rust and Bone.”
“Sometimes, you can get nervous around really big directors and put them up on a pedestal, so I think it really worked out for the best. It meant that I could approach him in a very familiar manner and not as a fan or with some kind of fetish,” Gascón told NBC News through a translator.
In terms of the film, which debuts in select theaters Friday and on Netflix Nov. 13, the Spanish-born actor said it would have been “impossible to reject,” adding that she knew the project would “make history.”
“Honestly, I would’ve done this even if he had given me a small role, even if I ended up being a waitress or something,” she said.
Rating: 5