Emilia Perez star reveals ‘arguments’ over Selena Gomez slap in Netflix film-Asyia Iftikhar-Entertainment – Metro

Netflix film Emilia Perez’s titular star Karla Sofía Gascón on the crucial change she made to the movie – and why she’s not listening to the backlash.

The movie musical – directed by Jacques Audiard and composed by Clement Ducol and Camille Dalmais – follows four women in modern-day Mexico. 

When Mexican cartel drug kingpin Manitas recruits lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana) to organise gender-affirming surgery to start a new life as saint-like figure Emilia Perez, the repercussions span further than either could ever have imagined. 

Emilia must navigate re-introducing herself to her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) as a cousin of her late husband and reckon with her new role in her children’s lives – a strategy that soon begins to unravel. 

The unspoken tension and layers of emotional repression come to a head in a heated confrontation scene between the once-married couple, fuelled by burgeoning resentment and Jessi’s attempt to move on with her life after Manitas. 

Although their argument includes a physical element, there is one pivotal moment written in the scene – where Emilia slaps Jessi – that Karla successfully advocated to leave out of the final cut. 

Emilia Perez star Karla Sofia Gascon reveals key change she made to the Netflix movie (Picture: Netflix)

The star believed slapping Selena Gomez’s character would change the entire movie (Picture: Netflix)

The 52-year-old telenovela actor told Metro: ‘Originally the script had it [in the scene] that Emilia would hit Jessi and get physically violent.

‘We had a lot of arguments and discussions with Jacques to get him to remove [the slap] from the script because if he had left it like that then we would have lost the character of Emilia that we had been building so far.

‘She would never have become the saint she became by the end of the film. It would have changed the meaning completely and the martyr would have ended up being Jessi. 

‘I love that scene because it’s the moment where you see Emilia change from pretending she was okay with everything to breaking. It’s a marvellous, marvellous scene.’

The Spanish star, who built a career for herself after moving to Mexico and transitioned at the age of 46, has already blazed a trail with her vivid and nuanced, portrayal of Emilia. 

The screenstar, who knew she was trans from the age of four, was inspired to live as her authentic self when a gender-affirming unit was opened in Spain.

And poured as much as she could from her own life experiences into both Manitas and Emilia. 

She is the first out trans woman to win the acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival, best actress at the European Film Awards and secure a Golden Globe nomination.

Zoe Saldana also stars in the record-breaking movie (Picture: Netflix)

All signs point towards her making Oscars history by the end of the award season.

(The film itself has made history for the most Golden Globe nominations for a musical/comedy, exceeding Barbie)

But this success has not been without its backlash.

After Karla’s Cannes victory, French far-right politician Marion Maréchal posted on X: ‘So a man has won best actress. Progress for the left means the erasure of women and mothers’ resulting in Karla filing a legal complaint. 

Discussing the outcry from certain vocal quarters, Karla shared an impassioned message. 

She said: ‘The truth is these people are the fuel to my fire, every time I see them getting darker and more hateful and spewing disgusting things I just know it means I am on the right path.

‘I am pleased to see I am public enemy number one to these people and the more things I do the worse they get. If I get an award tomorrow I’ll dedicate it to them just to really get them going. 

‘When these people are trying to demerit my achievements they are also trying to demerit people from this marginalised group that I perhaps represent.’

She added that if through her work she is able to give just ‘one grain of sand’ to helping her community then she ‘absolutely will’. 

And bigotry is not the only obstacle Gascon had to overcome to bring this acclaimed role to life. The actor also had to transform her singing voice. 

The Spanish actor will ‘dedicate awards’ to the people who have criticised her (Picture: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

‘It was so difficult and complicated, because I am not a singer. I have never even dreamt of trying to compete with Madonna or the Beatles.

‘I had to sing in two different registers [for Manitas and Emilia], neither of which are mine. My register is more Duran Duran but Clement and Camille’s songs are much more lyrical, perfectionist and vibrato.

‘It required a huge amount of work but they were able to record me 57,000 times and find the best take to make me sound as good as possible,’ she joked. 

As the movie careens towards a record-breaking awards season, there’s no denying its impact on trans representation in Hollywood and the importance of authentic casting. 

As Karla concluded: ‘At the end of the day 99.9% of the people that have commented on the film have been wonderful and incredibly positive.

‘The problem that we have in society is that often we pay too much attention to the four cats that have something negative to say and are very loud about it. It is often a tiny minority that just hates everyone but they speak the loudest.’

Emilia Perez is now available to stream on Netflix.

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