‘I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to’: ‘Emilia Perez’ director has some harsh words for Karla Sofía Gascón
The Emilia Pérez controversy shows no sign of slowing down in the run-up to the Oscars. There were many celebrations when Karla Sofía Gascón became the first trans woman nominated for an acting Academy Award, but that joy was soon squashed when it transpired she’d made multiple bigoted tweets in the past. Gascón had slammed Islam, used the r-word, and called the murdered George Floyd “a drug addict swindler.”
Gascón issued a short and not very convincing apology, but it soon became clear there was no going back for her. Her further attempts to explain herself failed, and now it looks like Emilia Pérez’s Oscar chances are severely impacted. (The film was up for thirteen awards overall.)
Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard has spoken out about the controversy and to say he’s not happy would be an understatement. He described her past comments as “inexcusable” in a new interview with Deadline.
“I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to. She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing,” he went on. Gascón did an ill-advised interview with CNN where she said she would not withdraw her name from the Oscars, but Netflix are reportedly no longer supporting her.
“Why is she harming herself? Why?” Audiard went on. “I don’t understand it, and what I don’t understand about this too is why she’s harming people who were very close to her. I’m thinking in this thing of how hurting others, of how she’s hurting the crew and all these people who worked so incredibly hard on this film. I’m thinking of myself, I’m thinking of Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. I just don’t understand why she’s continuing to harm us. I’m not getting in touch with her because right now she needs space to reflect and take accountability for her actions.”
“She’s really playing the victim. She’s talking about herself as a victim, which is surprising. It’s as if she thought that words don’t hurt,” he continued.
Trouble is… Audiard is also in trouble for racism. Critics have slammed him for making a movie in Spanish when he can’t speak it, and using Mexico as a prop. Some trans Mexican filmmakers have even mocked Emilia Pérez with a parody of the movie called Johanne Sacreblu, where everyone is dressed as a French stereotype. And then there was an unfortunate comment from Audiard: while talking about the movie, he called Spanish “a language of modest countries, of developing countries, of the poor and migrants.” Many Mexicans were not impressed. Deadline asked him about that, as well, and he got defensive, saying, “I happen to enormously love the Spanish language.”
“There’s English and there’s Spanish, and Spanish is such a rich language that crosses borders,” he went on. “What’s been said about my statement is actually exactly the opposite of what I think. I worked five years on this film and for it to now be denigrated in this way, it’s really simply too much.”
Deadline pressed Audiard about how Mexicans reacted to Emilia Perez, and he doubled down. “What shocked me is that either people haven’t seen the film properly, or they haven’t seen it at all and are acting in bad faith,” he said. He spoke about realism before concluding, “This is an opera, not a criticism of anything about Mexico.” But Mexicans don’t see it that way and are infuriated by the racism in the film. Audiard wants Gascón to “reflect and take accountability for her actions”, but he refuses to do the same thing himself. At this point, it would surely be best if Emilia Pérez went home with no Oscars.
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