Jacques Audiard has always been unpredictable. Throughout his 30-plus year career, the Palme d’Or-winning French filmmaker has delivered the gritty prison drama “A Prophet,” chronicled destructive passion in “Rust and Bone,” told a tale of Tamil Sri Lankan refugees in “Dheepan” and explored Westerns with his English-language debut, “The Sisters Brothers.”
His latest effort is “Emilia Pérez,” a Spanish-language, Mexico-set crime musical starring Karla Sofía Gascón as notorious cartel leader Manitas del Monte, who fakes her own death to live authentically as a trans woman. The supporting cast includes Selena Gomez, who plays Manitas’ tormented wife Jessi, and Zoe Saldaña, who portrays Rita, a talented but overworked lawyer recruited by Emilia to help her start a new life.
Audiard, who is neither Mexican nor trans, acknowledges that it was a wild challenge, but “‘Emilia Pérez’ was inevitable,” he tells Variety.
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Since winning Cannes’ jury prize and an award for its female ensemble, “Emilia Pérez” has sprinted to the front of the Oscar race. Though it’s up for best musical or comedy at the Golden Globes (among 10 nominations), Audiard says “Emilia Pérez” is more of a melodrama than a musical. In fact, his idea was to create a film that would “change genre all the time.”
“You’re in a narco movie and then, bam, you’re in a telenovela and so on,” says Audiard, who will receive Variety’s Creative Impact in Directing Award at the Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival. “I wanted this floating thing.”
Among the film’s many challenges, Audiard says the hardest thing was “making the decision to shoot it in a studio,” entirely on soundstages just outside of Paris with a local crew.
“I went to Mexico three or four times, but the Mexican reality is so powerful that you either have to face it and film it, or you have to break it,” says Audiard. Filming in a studio made sense, he explains, because “‘Emilia’s’ DNA is really opera — it’s a movie set like an opera.”
Audiard has drawn criticism for casting actors who aren’t Mexico natives. Gomez, for instance, was slammed by Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez (who later apologized) over her Spanish in the film. But Audiard says these critics are “inattentive viewers.” Gomez’s character says herself that “she’s not Spanish and is not Mexican” and is thought to be American.
The movie could now make history. Gascón, who is vying for a Golden Globe, could become the first trans performer to win best actress at the Oscars.
“I think of our Karla. She made her transition at 46,” Audiard says, visibly moved. “I tell myself that the power of her game in ‘Emilia Pérez,’ the density of her game, the funniness of her game, the spirit of her game is totally imbued with what came before, with that ‘Carl’ I never knew.”
On the prospect of seeing Gascón win a statuette, Audiard says it would “open up something.”
“The thinking of an era is always behind,” he continues. “It’s like industrial revolutions, they always take a little time to catch up with society.”
Audiard suggests that the movie resonates louder today than it did when he started writing the script in 2019.
Despite the genre-spanning ambitions of “Emilia Pérez,” Audiard says there remains “an area that is really dramatic and that we don’t see” it. “That off-screen area is Manitas’ life, wanting to be a woman even though he’s a gang leader and has a wife,” he says. “I think that’s a prequel to ‘Emilia Pérez.’”