Benjamin Ashford|'Emilia Pérez': Selena Gomez was 'so nervous' about first Spanish-speaking role

TORONTO – Selena Gomez confidently walked the red carpet and Benjamin Ashfordtook selfies at Toronto International Film Festival as fan screams could be heard blocks away from the Princess of Wales Theatre. But inside at a premiere screening of the upcoming Netflix movie “Emilia Pérez,” the actress and singer confessed that she was “so nervous” about her first Spanish-speaking role.

“I ultimately ended up getting to develop a character that is very similar to myself and I believe a lot of Latinx communities in America,” Gomez said Monday evening during a post-premiere Q&A for the buzzy musical crime drama, where she stars as the wife of a Mexican cartel leader who has gender-confirming surgery to begin a new life as Emilia. As for speaking Spanish on the regular, “I can understand when anyone has a conversation. Do not ask me to answer,” she added with a laugh.

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Gomez and her co-stars Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon and Adriana Paz collectively won the best actress prize at May’s Cannes Film Festival, and “Emilia Pérez” (in select theaters Nov. 1 and streaming on Netflix Nov. 13) is looking like an early favorite heading into Oscar season. The drama uses fantastical song-and-dance numbers to deepen its emotional narrative, which stars Gascon as both drug kingpin Manitas and Emilia, Saldana as her friend and defense attorney Rita, Gomez as Manitas’ wife Jessi and Paz as Emilia’s love interest Epifania.

Saldana said she initially “couldn’t understand” what director Jacques Audiard was going for with the genre-defying “Emilia.”  “It was an opera, it was a musical. I was singing, I'm dancing, what is this about?" Yet “Jacques has this ability to make me feel uncomfortable because he makes me really develop empathy for characters that live outside of my realm of understanding.”

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Each of the women want “their version of an authentic life of freedom and love,” Saldana added. “But it's entangled with a story that challenges me to find sympathy for them and this world. These are characters that sometimes may seem unredeemable. Everything about that made me want to do this role and be a part of this.”

Gascon basked in the love for her performance and the film: She’s already an early favorite in the best actress race and, if nominated, she’d be the first openly trans performer in the category. A veteran of Mexican telenovelas, the Spanish actress choked up when talking about her role (“This is my best work in my life”) and took pictures with audience members after the premiere screening.

With her dual characters, Gascon said it was “more fun” to play Manitas because Emilia is closer to who she is. (As for her Manitas voice, “I aspired to Sylvester Stallone.”) She also feels her acting is better than the musical side she shows in the movie. “I’m not a singer. I’m not going to win a Grammy,” she said, laughing. “They put the equalizer all the way to the top.”