Zoe Salda?a overcomes ‘Emilia Pérez’ controversy and wins Oscar for Best Supporting Actress
Zoe Salda?a is now a first-time Oscar winner. The Emilia Pérez star won Best Supporting Actress at the 97th annual Academy Awards on Sunday night, capping off a dominant awards season run despite massive controversy around her film. Salda?a previously won Best Supporting Actress honors from the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
During her emotional speech, Salda?a noted how she made history with the victory. “My grandmother came to this country in 1961 — I am a proud child of immigrant parents,” she said. “With dreams and dignity and hard-working hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last. I hope. The fact that I’m getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish — my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted, this is for my grandmother.”
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Salda?a was a season-long frontrunner in the category, following in the footsteps of last year’s Best Supporting Actress winner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who similarly swept the televised precursors. However, some doubted whether Salda?a could withstand the fallout from the controversy over costar Karla Sofía Gascón. The Emilia Pérez lead — who made history this year as the first openly trans woman nominated for Best Actress — became the focal point of a days-long scandal of her own making when, in late January, bigoted and offensive social media posts Gascón wrote over the last several years resurfaced. In her response to the outrage over her inflammatory comments, Gascón fumbled several attempts at apology and, ultimately, said she would back away from her film’s awards campaign. (Gascón’s appearance at the Academy Awards on Sunday night was her first stateside appearance since the Oscar nominations were announced last month.)
While Gascón did herself little favor with her attempts to contextualize the posts, Salda?a quickly distanced herself from the blast radius. “I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” she said during an event in London just after the scandal erupted. “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. 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.”
She continued, “It saddens me that we are having to face this setback right now. But I’m happy that you’re all here and that you’re all still showing up for Emilia because the message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important. And all that I can attest is that all of us that came together to tell this story, we came together for love and for respect and curiosity, and we will continue to spread that message. That’s all we can say right now. Thank you.”
Salda?a did not mention Gascón by name during her many televised acceptance speeches — including at the Oscars — but she always spoke highly of the film’s cast and crew in general. She also highlighted the themes of Emilia Pérez, which starkly contrasted with the offensive remarks from Gascón.
“My wish for the impact of this film on audiences in our world is that I hope we can all be curious and open-hearted towards each other because you never know when you’ll have the opportunity to be a hero in someone else’s story. So our world is too big and too beautiful to be any other way,” Salda?a said at the Critics Choice Awards.
When she won at the BAFTA Awards, Salda?a dedicated her win to her nephew, who is trans.
Salda?a is the fifth Best Supporting Actress winner from a musical in the last 25 years, following Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago), Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story). She’s the second Afro-Latina actress to win at the Oscars after DeBose.
Once considered a potential Best Picture frontrunner at the Oscars and the nominations leader with 13 total bids, Emilia Pérez is expected to win only one other award on Sunday night: Best Song for “El Mal” (Salda?a’s show-stopping number). The Netflix release is also a top competitor for Best International Feature, where I’m Still Here is the frontrunner.
The win for Salda?a came against a field that included Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Ariana Grande (Wicked), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), and Isabella Rossellini (Conclave). Her closest competition came from Grande, who was an online favorite thanks to the popularity of Wicked but never mounted a serious charge against Salda?a. The expectation, however, is that Grande might be back again next year with the second part of Wicked, subtitled For Good.
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