“A song would change the script, and the script would change the song”
It’s easy to see why Pierre-Marie Dru, Executive Music Producer and Music Supervisor for Emilia Pérez on Netflix, is passionate about the film directed by Jacques Audiard.
The Guild of Music Supervisors award nominee collaborated closely with French composer Clément Ducol and singer-songwriter Camille to create the musical elements of the film, which features performances by Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Garcón, and Selena Gomez.
Music plays a crucial role in connecting the story, which is based on Boriz Razon’s 2018 novel Écoute. The film tells the story of a cartel leader (Karla Sofia Garcón) who recruits a disillusioned lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to help her transition into a woman.
The soundtrack, which includes a score by Ducol and Camille, is filled with emotionally charged songs that drive the narrative forward with infectious rhythms and passionate melodies. Among the standout tracks, “El Mal” and “Mi Camino” have been nominated for Best Original Song at this year’s Golden Globes.
Dru, who also worked on the musical Annette, emphasizes how integral the actors’ performances were to the music, noting that they not only sang but also danced. Live recordings were made during the filming to capture the raw, authentic sound of the cast, and he recalls how the opening song ‘El Alegato’ came together on set.
“In the market scene with the song ‘El Alegato,’ there were dancers and extras, and during rehearsal, everyone was singing,” explains Dru. “That’s what we wanted to capture throughout the entire shoot. So, we brought in a separate sound team to record everything live.”
Pierre-Marie Dru spoke with Awards Focus about shaping the film’s music and story with Clément Ducol, Camille, and Jacques Audiard, the process of discovering Karla Sofia Garcón, and the creation of Manitas’s singing voice. He also shared his personal favorite tracks from the film.
Awards Focus: How did you come to join Emilia Pérez as Executive Music Producer and Music Supervisor?
Pierre-Marie Dru: It started around five years ago. I met Jacques during the COVID lockdown and had been working on the movie Annette, which is also a musical. I was working with Clément Ducal in Paris on the film Annette, and we were a great team. Jacques had this idea for Emilia Pérez, and when it was just a few pages of the script, he met with Clément, who told Jacques that if he was doing a Spanish opera, he had to meet his partner, Camille, and they started working on three or four songs. They needed somebody to help organize everything, so Clément suggested Jacques bring me on board. I was in the south of France at the time, and we started working on the musical.
Jacques had this idea to create a podcast, and he wanted it done in three days. It took three months, and we completed everything with the narrative and many of the songs in the film. When we finished, we knew we could start working on bringing a team together to help make the movie, and that was the first big step.
AF: Were you trying to connect each of the songs from the beginning to the end, or how were the lyrics and musical elements used to connect the story?
Dru: Camille always said that the song was like a connection between pages in the script. They would say, for example, that we can have a song that could help us go from page 5 to page 15. In one song, you can deliver a lot of things, you know? A lot of emotion. That was the main thing about doing a musical: we wanted to mix the sound design, the real sound, the music, the voices, and the texture of the voices all together.
A song would change the script, and the script would change the song, and it kept changing until the end. It’s a musical, and like animation, you have to be very precise before shooting because it’s hard to change the meaning of the lyrics in the editing room. We had to prepare as much as possible.
AF: The creatives behind the musical seem to come from varying backgrounds and countries. What was the collaboration like with the team and putting the film together?
Dru: Jacques is a master. He has an amazing Editor, Juliette Welfling, and he was very confident that Clément and Camille could deliver on the songs. I had a team in Mexico that worked on music and casting. You really need to work like this to have a final masterpiece because everything from the songs to acting, vocal coaches, working with dancers, a choreographer, it’s like a show is being put on everyday on set. You need to have good people and not to have too many people. Jacques doesn’t like that because he wants to work very closely with the cast.
AF: That opening track incorporates spoken dialogue along with singing and movement. How much time was there to block and choreograph the sequences in pre-production before you started shooting?
Dru: Very little time. Damien Jallet and his team had worked on the choreography with Zoe Saldaña, and we’d had a lot of discussions with Jacques, Camille, and Clément about the music, so everything came together very quickly when filming began. And as we started with this title, we had to be ready right away. 1 or 2 days of rehearsal with the extras and dancers, and it was off to the shoot.
We had great coaches with us for singing (Lucile Chriqui) and lip-sync (Carolina Santana). It was a short preparation because the cast arrived from the US. They were so involved in this movie and wanted to do it, so, in that way, they were prepared. Having those actors there two months before was impossible, so we had to be a bit more rock and roll together.
AF: Sequences like ‘El Mal’ felt a bit like rock and roll with the camera flying through the room.
Dru: That took one day of shooting and one day of rehearsal before. Zoe [Saldana] prepared the choreography with Damien Jalet, our choreographer. The audience wasn’t moving in the scene, Zoe was doing this amazing singing, and Jacques and Damien had an idea the morning of the shooting. There was a lot that changed during the shooting, and every day was different. Jacques would decide that we didn’t need to shoot a song tomorrow, so we were fighting to keep the song in the movie. It was funny.
AF: You mentioned earlier about working with your team in Mexico to cast the film. How did you answer the question of who was going to play Emilia Pérez?
Dru: Jacques really wanted an artist. Camille and Clément wanted a great singer, and Jacques just wanted to work with the actors, and there are two different worlds between singers and actors. We were looking for someone who could do both well.
I found Karla Sofia Garcón in the Spanish newspaper on the cultural page. I proposed to Jacques that he meet her quickly because she is amazing, and we will manage something with the singing. She worked for two years with coaches, and she sang in the film with Camille in her ear.
AF: It’s interesting watching her performance as ‘Manitas’ before the transition because his singing voice is more staccato, kind of trailing along a consistent beat. How did his voice and singing style come together?
Dru: Very nice question! The first thing you must know is that at the beginning, when we were looking for Emilia, Jacques wanted another actor to play Manitas. It was Karla who told Jacques that she would do both.
It is very impressive when you know her personal life. She was great at doing Manitas in the voice, and she tried lots of things with Jacques for the singing. Camille did the demos of that kind of rap, and it’s hard to say what kind of music it is. It was hard for Karla to do what Camille was doing with the song because you need to be an amazing singer. So, Karla found a way. She proposed something between what she wanted to do, what she could do, and what Camille’s song and performance were like. She did her own performance on it.
AF: Do you have a favorite song from the film?
Dru: Would say I have about four or five favorites. I really like ‘El Alegato’ and ‘El Amor’. I also love the song “Para” that Camille and Clément wrote in the early days of this fantastic project. It’s a song about the lost family members in Mexico. We can feel, even in France, the emotion of this song.
Every time I see this movie, I have to say, it’s very moving because I love the music. I love the intensity, and I love the ladies singing together. You can feel the acting and the music.