Karla Sofía Gascón recently stole the spotlight with her performance in the award-winning noir-musical Emilia Pérez, and Madonna's vivid pink-scrawled
Karla Sofía Gascón recently stole the spotlight with her performance in the award-winning noir-musical Emilia Pérez, and Madonna’s vivid pink-scrawled reaction on Instagram – “WOW” – aptly captures the reaction of many viewers. The 52-year-old Gascón, born and raised near Madrid, has spent most of her career acting in Mexican telenovelas, but her portrayal of Manitas, a drugs kingpin who fakes his death, transitions to female and becomes a socially conscious activist, is a one-off. The movie, like the character, is unique – it’s a film that features brutal Mexican drug cartels and a sing-along about vaginoplasties, not often found in cinematic fare.
Gascón’s performance is operatic in its emotions. “Madonna was crying so much after the screening in New York,” she says, sitting demurely on the edge of a chaise longue in a London hotel room, her thick chestnut hair brushing the shoulders of her black dress with white collars and white-trimmed short sleeves. “She told me: ‘You’re amazing!’ She was crying and crying. I said: ‘Madonna, please. It’s only a film. Be happy!'”
Gascón has shed her fair share of tears, not least when the movie’s quartet of female stars – herself, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz – were jointly named best actress at Cannes, where the picture took home the jury prize. It was Gascón who delivered the moving six-minute acceptance speech, in which she told the audience that trans people had “been insulted, denigrated, subjected to a lot of violence.”
The morning after Gascón’s triumph, the French far-right MEP Marion Maréchal tweeted: “So a man has won best actress.” Six LGBTQ+ organizations filed complaints against Maréchal, and Gascón has personally sued her.
Gascón, however, is more composed now, thanks in part to her own personal growth. “I turned 46, and I thought, ‘I do it now, or I never do it,'” she says, referring to her transgender transition. “I have been criticized for how I look. I ride a motorbike. I don’t usually wear makeup. People say: ‘Why become a woman if you’re not going to wear makeup?’ But there’s a big confusion in society about what a woman is.”
Part of the message of Emilia Pérez, she thinks, is that power lies not in using violence but in renouncing it. “With violence, you can control a lot of people and impose your will. It is a form of imposition that has led us to women being made to do the household chores, or people of colour working in the cotton fields, or gay people not being allowed to marry. There has always been an explicit violence toward others in parts of male heterosexuality, and that has also been taken up by a part of women’s feminism to crush a certain section of the population.”
Where does the solution lie? “Education,” she says. “For instance, I’ve taught my daughter to respect herself and others, and to not let anyone treat her as if she is inferior. Women can feel now that they don’t need any man to solve their problems.”
For the UK premiere of Emilia Pérez at the 68th BFI London film festival, 11 October.
Conclusion:
Karla Sofía Gascón’s performance in Emilia Pérez has left audiences and critics alike in awe, with many hailing her as one of the greatest actresses of her generation.
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