From “Kokomo City” and “Crossing” to “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Mutt,” the last few years have brought a series of cinematic works that challenge what films about transgender subjects can or should be. Director Jacques Audiard’s genre-defying musical, “Emilia Pérez” — a stylized imagining of how a life of crime could be at least temporarily transformed by becoming one’s true self — may be the most ambitious yet.
At the heart of the largely Spanish-language film, co-written by Audiard and featuring a flurry of darkly lit song-and-dance numbers, is former telenovela star Karla Sofía Gascón, who signed up to play the titular Emilia without knowing much about the French auteur’s previous works, which include acclaimed multilingual indies like “A Prophet” and “Rust and Bone.”
“Sometimes, you can get nervous around really big directors and put them up on a pedestal, so I think it really worked out for the best. It meant that I could approach him in a very familiar manner and not as a fan or with some kind of fetish,” Gascón told NBC News through a translator.
In terms of the film, which debuts in select theaters Friday and on Netflix Nov. 13, the Spanish-born actor said it would have been “impossible to reject,” adding that she knew the project would “make history.”
“Honestly, I would’ve done this even if he had given me a small role, even if I ended up being a waitress or something,” she said.
Far from offering Gascón a small part, Audiard, by his own admission, would have struggled to make “Emilia Pérez” at all without its central star. Echoing his frequent comments on the matter since the operatic film’s splashy premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — where Gasćon and co-stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz all took home best actress awards — Audiard states in the film’s press notes that the actor’s inherent understanding of Emilia helped to feed the unique character, who is “as terrifying as she is touching,” and make her “a work of mutual influence.”
But Gasćon’s contributions went beyond aiding the French director in shaping the film’s transgender storyline and protagonist. As the title character, Gascón, who has called Mexico home for over a decade, lends an air of intrigue to “Emilia Pérez” that comes from years of acting in Mexican dramas, as well as a fragility that comes from personal experience.
“I’m one of the few people on the team that speaks Spanish, and I was one of the first to join, so I really got to see the development of this project and involve myself in it,” Gascón said of her collaborative relationship with Audiard, who chose Spanish for the film because of its lyrical quality, despite not being fluent. “I added anything that I could to make it a little bit more realistic and a little bit more aligned with what it was trying to do.”
On informing the portrayal of her character’s transition, the actor, who came out publicly as transgender in 2018, said, “I’m obviously incredibly grateful to be able to play this type of character, and anything that I could do to bring it to life, I was very happy to.”
The exuberant, full-throttle musical inspired by French writer Boris Razon’s novel “Écoute” starts in Mexico City, where a talented young criminal defense lawyer named Rita (Saldana) is struggling to find success without abandoning her moral code. The line between right and wrong becomes even more blurred for Rita when she’s scouted by the famously violent cartel boss Manitas (also played by Gascón) to help him, for a hefty payday, disappear, fake his death, schedule a marathon of gender-affirming surgeries and transport his wife (Gomez) and children to safety in Europe. Their arrangement, however, doesn’t end there: The glamorous post-transition Emilia reappears years later and makes the ill-fated decision to enlist Rita to bring her family back to Mexico to live with, as they’re told, Manitas’ benevolent cousin.
As the twisty plot unfolds, Gascón, who doesn’t have a formal singing or dancing background, portrays her characters’ evolving internal war in rap-heavy musical numbers that eventually reveal there are still traces of the cartel lord in Emilia — the role Gasćon found to be the much more difficult one to play.
“I’m a mother, and I understand perfectly what it could feel like, the loss of a child or not being able to see them for a long time, and I’ve experienced it in different ways,” said Gascón, who has a teenage daughter with her wife, Marisa. “At the same time, as an actor, you don’t have to be a killer to play a killer.”
“When you play a character that is closer to who you are, you’re more aware of yourself,” she added. “It’s a lot more fun and interesting to do characters that are different.”
Breaking down the differences between playing the ruthless crime lord and the polished benefactress, Gasćon also noted that the role of Emilia was deceptively physical.
“There’s a lot of physical things about her that were difficult. Her voice is a lot more acute and refined, she sits down in very specific ways, she wears a very tight corset that’s quite uncomfortable,” Gasćon explained. “She’s a woman that really wants to be seen as very beautiful and well put together.”
When she was playing Manitas, she added, she didn’t have to worry about her appearance and the way she was coming off onscreen.
“It was fine if I was a little bit disheveled and a little bit horrible. I mean, you can’t get any more horrible looking than Manitas,” she added, laughing.
Gasćon’s ability to execute both characters in a film that would challenge even the most seasoned triple threat has earned the actor critical acclaim, early accolades and a second big break. And so far, she’s used her moment in the spotlight to talk about weightier issues and act as an ambassador for the trans community, as well as for the film, despite it exposing her to various kinds of criticism. But her journey as the star of “Emilia Pérez” is far from over — with award season right around the corner and, the actor said, her characters’ lingering presence.
“It’s been hard to shed these two characters,” said Gascón, who’s already a favorite for best actress at next year’s Oscars after the film’s successful festival run. “It’s been a kind of catharsis in my life these past two years, working on this film. I was able to free myself from a lot of things that were weighing heavily on me.”
Of gradually letting those things — and her character — go, she added, “Emilia, she takes with her a lot of joy but also a lot of difficult things, and I’m very grateful to her for that.”