Zoe Saldaña is addressing the concerns regarding her costar Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Pérez.
“I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” Saldaña, 46, said in a London Q&A in response to the revelation of biased social media posts from her fellow Oscar nominee, per The Hollywood Reporter.
“It makes me really sad because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group,” she continued.
“I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural, and gender equity. And it just saddens me.”
In response to since-deleted postings she made criticising George Floyd, diversity at the Oscars, Muslim culture, and other topics, 52-year-old Gascón apologised and closed her X (previously Twitter) account on Friday.
In a statement to the outlet the same day, the Spanish actress mentioned a “campaign of hate and misinformation” and said, “I apologize again if anyone has ever felt offended or in the future. I am a human being who also made, makes and will make mistakes from which I will learn. I am not perfect.”
Saldaña portrays Rita in the film, a lawyer who assists Gascón’s title character, a Mexican drug cartel boss, in feigning her death and changing into a woman.
In addition to Saldaña’s supporting and Gascón’s leading roles, the film received 13 nominations for the 2025 Oscars, including Best Picture, the most ever for a film that is primarily in another language.
In the history of the Academy Awards, Gascón is the first actress to be publicly transgender. Édgar Ramírez, Adriana Paz, and Selena Gomez co-star.
Since its November Netflix debut, Emilia Pérez has been embroiled in a number of scandals, the most recent of which is the outcry over Gascón’s previous posts.
An LGBTQ advocacy group, described it as a “step backward for trans representation” and a “profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman.”
Emilia Pérez is now streaming on Netflix.
