Jacques Audiard defends ‘Emilia Pérez’ against criticism while distancing himself from Karla Sofía Gascón
Emilia Pérez writer and director Jacques Audiard is seeking to separate himself and the movie from the film’s star, Karla Sofía Gascón, after Gascón’s offensive social media posts and botched apology attempts.
“Very unfortunately, it is taking up all the space, and that makes me very sad,” Audiard said in an interview with Deadline. “It’s very hard for me to think back to the work I did with Karla Sofía. The trust we shared, the exceptional atmosphere that we had on the set that was indeed based on trust. And when you have that kind of relationship and suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected. It’s as if you fall into a hole. Because what Karla Sofía said is inexcusable.”
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Asked if he had spoken to her since the scandal broke last week, Audiard said no. “I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to,” said the filmmaker, an Oscar nominee this year for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Song. “She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing. Why is she harming herself? Why? 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 [Salda?a] 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.”
Last week, several offensive social media posts written by Gascón resurfaced, including inflammatory remarks she wrote about Muslims, George Floyd, and diversity at the Oscars. In response to the ensuing outrage, Gascón made multiple defensive statements and was finally sidelined by Emilia Pérez distributor Netflix, in an attempt to salvage the film’s awards campaign. Emilia Pérez received 13 nominations at the Oscars, including Best Actress for Gascón (she’s the first openly trans woman nominated for the award) and Best Picture. Before the scandal, the film was arguably the season’s frontrunner. But now, even Audiard can sense things have shifted.
“The reactions have changed,” Audiard told Deadline. “The reactions now are not the reactions that we were having earlier. As you’re very right to point out, I’ve been working on promoting this film for a long time, since before Cannes, and the reactions that we’re seeing now did not exist then and did not exist for a long time. I think the reactions around Mexico really changed around the Golden Globes, and now I can’t not mention important facts like the fact that we’ve had many European prizes, aside from the Golden Globes. There has been this curious change in the recognition that we’ve gotten from the profession, the public, and then the social networks.”
While Gascón has taken most of the flak about Emilia Pérez, Audiard has been criticized on social media for his film’s approach to Mexican culture and language. Emilia Pérez, now rather infamously, was not produced in Mexico despite telling a story about the country. Audiard, meanwhile, expressed some controversial views of his own when speaking about the movie. In one widely circulated interview on social media, the French director said, “Spanish is a language of modest countries, developing countries, poor people and migrants.”
Asked about the remarks, Audiard said, “Just to give you a little background, I’ve often made films in cultures that were not those of my native language. I’ve made a film in Tamil, I made a Western, in English. I’m drawn to things that don’t belong to the domain of my native language, and I happen to enormously love the Spanish language. I wanted to make an international film. Now, if you’re going to make an international film, there’s not a lot of languages that you have to choose from. There’s English and there’s Spanish, and Spanish is such a rich language that crosses borders. 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.”
About the broader critiques from Mexican audiences, the filmmaker suggested many had not seen his film or were taking his result in bad faith.
“The representation of the cartels in the film is thematic. It’s not something that I’m particularly focused on in the film,” he said. “There’s one scene that deals with it. The real thing that I’m interested in, that I was interested in doing, is that I wanted to make an opera. That demands a strong stylization. Well, that tends to be how opera is to have schematic elements. The psychology can be limited. Opera has psychological limitations. It seems I’m being attacked in the court of realism. Well, I’ve never claimed that I wanted to make a realistic work. If I wanted to make a work that was particularly documented, then I would do a documentary, but then there would be no singing and dancing. For example, I read a review where it said that night markets in Mexico City don’t have photocopiers. Well, in night markets in Mexico City, one also doesn’t sing and dance. You have to accept that is part of the magic here. This is an opera, not a criticism of anything about Mexico.”
Audiard is the latest member of the Emilia Pérez team to criticize Gascón. Previously, costar Salda?a also distanced herself from the lead actress. “It makes me really sad because I don’t support, and I don’t have any tolerance for, any negative rhetoric towards people of any group,” she said. “I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them were about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity. And it just saddens me.”
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