One day after the Los Angeles premiere of Jacques Audiard’s film, Emilia Pérez, the French filmmaker sat down with a round table for a roughly forty minute discussion.
Audiard, who spoke through his translator, opened up about about the inspiration for his film, building the characters, collaborating with his songwriting partners, and utilizing the musical elements to tell the story of a reformed transgender drug kingpin.
From Netflix, “Emilia Pérez tells the story of high-powered lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) who takes on an unexpected assignment: helping a Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) fake their death and undergo gender-affirming procedures.
The story also examines the ramifications of losing a father and how the cartel leader’s wife (Selena Gomez) and young children cope with it. Make no mistake that transgender individuals, much like cisgender people, can be flawed. The acting in the film is phenomenal, however, some moments in the film (such as the musical number about the gender reassignment surgery) did not sit well with me as a transgender member of the audience. Many of my colleagues who ultimately enjoyed the film, felt that this scene hit all the wrong notes.
I am not reviewing the film here, and will only speak to our round table conversation and my opportunity to engage him. My question focused on script evolution and any outside consultation for a wider discussion of the representation depicted in the film: “Can you talk about how the script evolved as lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón joined and crafting the character, and did GLAAD consult on the script at any point, as far as the trans storylines and any stereotypes?
Audiard spoke at length and then the translator shared the following: “I’ll try to be as clear as possible and in a sense, this is an answer that’s not really in my favor given how old I am. A lot of the research on LGBTQ+ questions escaped me.
I think if I was fifteen or twenty years younger, I would have been more on top of it. So, it’s really very simple for me. My reference on all this side of things was Karla Sofía. If I had a question, I asked her, she answered me. We had a correspondence, and I would just ask her, she would tell me. She’s very intelligent, and her position about these things can be quite surprising.
But she’s very, very hard on affirming her identity. I see, for instance, the way she shut down the extreme right in France… Karla Sofía was my professor and any time there was something in the script she didn’t like, she told me with the sincerity that we all know she has. A sincerity without appeal.
I should also mention that Karla Sofía has written two books about her life, which I haven’t read yet because they’re not translated into French (Laughs).”
Audiard’s Emilia Pérez is now streaming on Netflix.