Zoe Saldaña: Going back to her roots in Emilia Pérez on Netflix
Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez on Netflix.
SHE is the female star who features in four of the most-successful movies of all time. But besides the success of her work in the Avatar and Avengers movies, Zoe Saldaña is embracing the opportunity to return to her Spanish-language roots in Emilia Pérez. Saldaña acts, sings and even raps in Spanish in the movie, which is her first major role in the language she grew up with.
Against a backdrop of original songs and dance, Emilia Pérez tells the stories of four women in Mexico. A powerful cartel leader enlists lawyer Rita (Saldaña) to help fake their death and transition into living as a woman, Emilia.
The lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón’s own transition helped inform the film, from French director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet). The result is a once-in-a-lifetime role for Saldaña, who has become a favourite to pick up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress next spring.
The actress grew up in the US, but working in Spanish gave her the opportunity to embrace her Dominican and Puerto Rican roots. “I feel like the first stories I heard as a baby, as a child, the first songs I heard, my mother singing to me, my grandmother, it was in my native tongue.
“But I'm also very American. I've always lived in the lines between these both worlds, my old world and my new world. Being a first generation, you code-switch a lot. That was my world, and that was the world around me growing up in New York as being one among so many children of immigrants. There was always that desire to reconnect with my language, because I really do. I love art in Spanish. I love reading in Spanish, listening to music.”
The role also gave Saldaña the chance to revisit the career she originally dreamed of - dance. A trained dancer, she gets to show skills first honed decades earlier in one epic scene in the movie.
“It was great that I was still able to do it,” she says. “Your body's an extraordinary organism. The moment you stop pushing it in one direction, it immediately decides to go in another. The last time I had danced was 20 years ago. I've done stunts, and I always stay sort of active and athletic but dance was always my first love, and it wasn't meant to be. I didn't have the feet, and that was a very heartbreaking thing for me to know that no matter how much I was going to push, I was never going to get there.
“Transitioning into acting was the next thing I could do,” she says, adding that being given the opportunity two decades later was exciting but also daunting. “This opportunity, I couldn't pass it. I was going to rehearse it until my bones were out, and get it in my own way.
“It started out where I was really insecure and feeling really rusty, and then by the time we started shooting the movie, after six, seven weeks of rehearsals, I couldn't wait to start shooting. I just felt like I was equipped to deliver a good service. I was like: this is my one chance, I'm in my mid 40s, and I'm doing something like this. I was invigorated. I was so energised, repurposed, reconnected.”
Writer and director Jacques Audiard has always been a rebel when it came to his screen stories. Having made his breakthrough with 2009 French drama thriller A Prophet, chronicling a young criminal’s gradual rise to the very top of the mob’s ranks, the filmmaker is not one for doing the same thing twice. In the years since, he has brought audiences the Marion Cotillard-starring drama Rust and Bone and his own take on the classic Western, The Sisters Brothers.
Emilia Pérez goes to the next level, bringing us a character transitioning in the world of Mexican narcos in a fever-dream genre-buster that includes melodrama and a few musical numbers. It should come as no surprise that the maverick filmmaker was a big collaborator with his cast.
“A lot of the story was on the page, but a lot of it was more through Jacques telling us what this was going to be, because it was an ongoing writing that he kept doing the moment he casted, and everybody sort of had the freedom to to flesh out their characters,” says Saldaña.
“It was a very collaborative experience in terms of how we were putting our characters together, knowing the bare bones of each character, and knowing the bare bones of the story, it still felt like an extremely collaborative experience with Jacques. Working with him was like an experience and an experiment, because you knew where you were going, and yet you expected to be pleasantly surprised every day.”
Since she kick-started her acting career with appearances in TV series Law & Order, Saldaña has quietly become one of Hollywood’s most-successful stars. She holds the distinction of appearing in four of the highest-grossing movies of all time: Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
Regardless of how intimate or epic the project, the actress says that finding the right people to work has always been crucial to her. “I've been fortunate. I feel like I've worked with extremely collaborative directors,” she says. “I've also worked with directors that are very specific, and that also develops a different form of trust, because you know exactly what they want, and there's no figuring things out. Your job is to make sure that you come prepared with all the tools they've given you, and just be ready on set to do it. I'm okay with that as well.
“I just enjoy a process where the filmmaker is confident in what they wrote and confident in how you're going to affect it for the better. And there's that collaboration, because I'm an extremely vocal and open person and a very passionate individual, so I just feel very accepted when somebody understands my language and they allow me to participate a little more in their project. It just feels really good - and Jacques was that person.”
- Emilia Pérez is on Netflix now
A young woman named Elphaba forges an unlikely friendship with Glinda in Part One of the highly anticipated musical adaptation. Reviews have been mixed, but many fans still won't resist going along to see it.
Saoirse Ronan stars in Steve McQueen’s new drama, set in Wartime London during the bombings.
A young Niko’s latest animated adventures in this festive third film in the series.
Former contestants in the Housewife of the Year competition speak of social change and resilience in this Irish documentary.
Director Kathryn Bigelow’s much-loved 1991 action drama, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, returns to the screen.
