Karla Sofía Gascón is currently the most talked-about person in cinema, and honestly, it’s for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe it’s for all the right ones, depending on whether you’re looking at the screen or a Twitter feed from three years ago. When Emilia Pérez premiered at Cannes in 2024, the standing ovation lasted nearly ten minutes. Gascón, a 52-year-old Spanish actress who spent decades grinding in Mexican telenovelas, suddenly became the face of a "revolutionary" shift in film. She shared a Best Actress award with Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña. She was the first trans woman to ever win it.
Then, things got messy.
By the time the 2025 awards season rolled around, the narrative shifted from "historic breakthrough" to "total PR nightmare." Between unearthed tweets and a fierce debate over whether a French director should be making a movie about Mexican cartels, the actual performance of Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Pérez has almost been buried under the noise. But if you want to understand why this movie still matters—and why Gascón is such a polarizing figure—you have to look past the headlines.
The Role She Literally Had to Fight For
Jacques Audiard, the director, didn’t actually want one person to play the whole role.
Initially, the plan for Emilia Pérez was to hire a male actor to play Manitas del Monte, the terrifying cartel boss, and then hire a trans woman for the second half of the film after the character transitions. Gascón wasn't having it. She basically told Audiard that if he didn't let her play both parts, he was missing the point of the human experience.
It’s a gutsy move.
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Playing a hyper-masculine narco when you’ve spent years transitioning in real life is emotionally taxing. Gascón has spoken about how she "vowed" never to play a man again after her own transition in 2016. Yet, here she was, sitting in a makeup chair for three hours a day getting a fake beard and pockmarked skin applied. The makeup team, led by Floch-Carbonel, even used a "chimera" concept to blur her features so that the reveal of Emilia later in the film would feel like a literal rebirth.
Gascón argued that having two different actors would have "robbed the character's soul." She wanted the audience to see the same eyes in the monster and the saint.
Why the "Redemption" Arc is Sparking Outrage
There is a huge misconception that Emilia Pérez is a straightforward "trans story." It isn't. It's a fever dream musical about a murderer who tries to buy a clean conscience.
In the film, Manitas (Gascón) fakes his own death with the help of a lawyer, Rita (Zoe Saldaña), to undergo gender-affirming surgery and start a new life as Emilia. Years later, Emilia returns to Mexico, starts a non-profit to find the bodies of "disappeared" people, and tries to reconnect with her wife (Selena Gomez) by pretending to be a distant aunt.
The Problem with the Tropes
Critics from the trans community, including writers at GLAAD and Autostraddle, have pointed out some pretty uncomfortable patterns:
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- The "Killer" Trope: The movie links transition with a violent criminal past.
- Transition as Death: The film literally treats the "man" as dead, which many feel reinforces the idea that trans people "kill" their old selves rather than evolving.
- The Absolution: Does getting surgery suddenly make you not a cartel boss who killed hundreds? The movie kind of says... maybe?
Mexicans have been just as vocal. High-profile cinematographers like Rodrigo Prieto have criticized the film for its "inauthentic" portrayal of Mexico. It was shot mostly in a studio in France, and it shows. The accents are a bit of a mess, and the "narco-musical" genre can feel like it’s trivializing the very real horror of disappearances in Mexico for the sake of a catchy song.
The 2025 Twitter Scandal That Changed Everything
If the movie's content was a spark, Gascón's social media history was a bucket of gasoline.
Just as she was being positioned for a historic Oscar run in early 2025, a series of posts from 2019 to 2021 resurfaced. They weren't just "edgy"; they were described by major outlets like The Guardian as racist and Islamophobic. She made comments about George Floyd and Islam that left the "liberal-leaning Hollywood community" (as one PR veteran put it) in total shock.
Netflix scrambled. They reportedly pulled her from some major campaigning materials. Gascón herself skipped the Goya Awards in Spain after the backlash hit a fever pitch.
She did apologize. She said her words were "misinterpreted" and that she’s "less racist than Gandhi," which... is certainly a choice of words. Antonio Banderas came to her defense, suggesting she was being victimized by transphobia, but the damage was done. The "fairytale" of the first trans Best Actress winner was effectively over.
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How to Actually Watch Emilia Pérez (The Nuanced Take)
If you’re going to watch the film now, you have to separate the art from the chaos, which is hard. Gascón's performance is objectively powerhouse. She has a "queenly flair," as some critics put it, and her ability to anchor a movie that jumps from opera to crime thriller is genuinely impressive.
What you should look for:
- The Polarity: Watch how Gascón uses her voice. She didn't just change her look; she changed her entire physical presence between the Manitas and Emilia eras.
- The Musicality: The "penis-to-vagina" song (yes, that’s a real thing in the first act) is widely considered the weirdest part of the movie. Try to see it as the absurdist opera Audiard intended rather than a literal documentary.
- The Ensemble: Zoe Saldaña is arguably the real lead. She is the moral compass (or lack thereof) that guides the audience through the madness.
Actionable Insights for Film Fans
If you're following the Karla Sofía Gascón and Emilia Pérez saga, don't just take the headlines at face value.
- Watch the Movie on Netflix: Form your own opinion on the "redemption" arc before joining the social media dogpile. It's a complicated piece of art that doesn't fit into a "good" or "bad" box.
- Read Trans Critics: To understand why the "cis-imagination" critique matters, look up reviews by Harron Walker or Drew Burnett Gregory. They offer a perspective on representation that you won't get from mainstream Hollywood trades.
- Check the Timeline: Understand that the 2025 controversy is a separate beast from the 2024 Cannes win. One is about acting talent; the other is about the accountability of public figures.
The story of Karla Sofía Gascón isn't finished. She’s already filming her next project, a Western called Trinidad, where she plays a "female Darth Vader" type villain. Whether Hollywood forgives her or keeps her at arm's length, her performance in Emilia Pérez has already changed the rules for what trans actors are "allowed" to do on screen.
The era of playing "the victim" is over. Gascón proved you can be the monster, the mother, and the diva all in the same 130 minutes.
Next Steps: You might want to look into the full list of 2025 Oscar nominations to see how the "Emilia Pérez" backlash actually affected the final voting results. It’s a fascinating case study in how social media can derail a "sure thing" awards campaign in real-time.