Zoe Saldaña has added numerous honors to her spectacular checklist of accolades this awards season. She most just lately took dwelling the Greatest Supporting Actress honor on the London Movie Critics Circle Awards for her efficiency in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez. Additionally, throughout her acceptance speech, she made feedback that many imagine subtly referenced the controversy surrounding her co-star and fellow 2025 Oscar nominee, Karla Sofía Gascón. Mentioned scenario is expounded to some resurfaced tweets from Gascón.
Karla Sofía Gascón, a transgender actress who performed the titular position in Emilia Pérez, has been on the middle of awards season discourse after successful Greatest Actress at Cannes—resulting in debates over class placement, illustration, and the business’s dealing with of trans performers. Zoe Saldaña didn’t point out particular names throughout her handle, however her feedback appeared to reference the continuing controversy associated to the movie, which is offered for streaming with a Netflix subscription. Throughout her acceptance speech (by way of Gold Derby), she said:
I didn’t have something ready, you guys. I wasn’t anticipating this, and particularly now. I’m so grateful to you.
Whereas transient, the Guardian of the Galaxy star’s emotional response seemingly suggests she’s conscious one of many bigger conversations swirling round Emilia Pérez. Whereas she didn’t instantly identify Gascón, the actress later spoke in regards to the struggles of following one’s convictions within the face of opposition. This message felt significantly related, given the cloud hanging over the movie’s awards marketing campaign. She continued:
It’s laborious, it is rather difficult, to imagine in one thing with a lot conviction that you’re keen to go in opposition to the grain. And generally the grain can betray you, as a result of the grain can inform you that it’s the proper path. However you imagine in your coronary heart and also you do it. And I really feel like that’s the path of an artist, is to imagine in what you’re feeling, if it’s coming from a spot of affection and purity and data and schooling, analysis and laborious work. Emilia was performed with a lot of all of these issues.
Zoe Saldaña continued to precise gratitude for her fellow forged members, together with Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, emphasizing how their collective efforts made the movie doable:
After we all got here collectively, we got here with all of our baggage, all of our luggage, and we put it on the desk, and we simply made lots with what we had. One thing actually lovely got here of it, and also you noticed it. So I need to thanks for seeing it.
Emilia Pérez is essentially the most nominated movie at this 12 months’s Oscars. Zoe Saldaña is a frontrunner within the Greatest Supporting Actress class and have become a 2025 Golden Globe winner, because of her efficiency, which sparked appreciable disdain amongst viewers. Whether or not the posts from Saldaña’s co-star will have an effect on her personal possibilities at numerous upcoming award reveals, together with the Academy Awards, is unsure.
The Star Trek alum’s speech follows feedback she made a couple of days earlier at a London occasion selling the Jacques Audiard-helmed movie. When requested in regards to the controversy surrounding Gascón’s resurfaced remarks, Saldaña reacted, acknowledging that she was nonetheless “processing” the scenario however clarifying that she doesn’t assist any type of discriminatory rhetoric.
Whereas Emilia Pérez has been a essential darling and stays a Greatest Image contender, there may be mounting hypothesis that the backlash surrounding Karla Sofía Gascón might impression the movie’s Oscar possibilities. As of this writing, Zoe Saldaña stays the one forged member to handle the scenario publicly. Whether or not her phrases will help regular the movie’s standing in awards season stays to be seen, however one factor is evident—she’s standing by the movie’s message.