Karla Sofía Gascón will attend the Oscars after all
Embattled Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón is expected to attend the Oscars on Sunday in support of Emilia Pérez.
The New York Post was the first outlet to report Gascón’s plans. Variety also confirmed the news. According to the trade site, Netflix will reportedly pay for Gascón’s travel plans, a shift from how the studio previously handed the actress after her offensive behavior was brought to light.
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If she attends, it will be the first awards season event in the U.S. where Gascón shows up in person since the controversy over her past bigoted social media posts exploded the Emilia Pérez awards campaign. On Friday, she made her first public appearance in weeks at the César Film Awards in France.
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Gascón last commented on the scandal in an Instagram post on Feb. 6, following an interview in which Emilia Pérez filmmaker Jacques Audiard urged her to stay quiet throughout the remainder of the awards campaign.
“Following Jacques's interview that I understand, I decided, for the film, for Jacques, for the cast, for the incredible crew who deserves it, for the beautiful adventure we all had together, to let the work talk for itself, hoping my silence will allow the film to be appreciated for what it is, a beautiful ode to love and difference,” she wrote. “I sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt along the way.”
Gascón’s fall from grace was swift and unexpected. Emilia Pérez led all films this year with 13 Oscar nominations, including a historic bid for its star, the first openly trans woman nominated for Best Actress. However, just a week after the Oscar nominations were announced, several inflammatory social media posts by Gascón resurfaced online. The posts included offensive language about Muslims, the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd, diversity at the Oscars, and even allegedly Gascón’s Emilia Pérez co-star Selena Gomez. In response to the outrage over the posts, Gascón released several apologies – each arguably worse than the next, and only one officially released with the blessing of Netflix, the film’s distributor and awards benefact. Eventually, Netflix backed away from the star, reportedly refusing to pay for Gascón to attend awards season events in Los Angeles. Still, it wasn’t until Audiard blasted his star that the actress decided to stay silent.
“I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to,” Audiard told Deadline. “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 [cast mates] Zoe [Salda?a] and Selena. 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.”
Although the full scope of the backlash against Emilia Pérez may never have been officially known, the conventional wisdom is that Gascón torpedoed the film’s chances of winning Best Picture. Heading into the Oscars on Sunday, the expectation is that the Netflix movie will win awards for Best Supporting Actress for Salda?a and Best Song. It is also a top contender for Best International Film but faces intense competition from I’m Still Here.
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