Zoe Saldana as Emilia Perez. The interview

Jean-Luc Godard said that to make a film all you need is a woman and a gun. Jacques Audiard – who is not a Godardian at all – he must have taken note anyway and, since he is not one for half measures, he decided to square everything. Guns in his exotic musical-noir-gangster film Emilia Perez there is more than one, since we are in Mexico and everything revolves around the choices of the grim Manitas, boss of a drug cartel. We even have four women, all awarded at the last Cannes festival (and the film also took home the jury prize).

The women of Emilia Perez

Zoe Saldaña is part of the «alpha women» teamin the words of my colleague Édgar Ramírez, among the few accredited male names. Experienced lawyer, but under the thumb of a boss who defends criminals and unpresentables, Zoe seizes the opportunity of a lifetime when Manitas makes her an offer that is difficult to refuse: organize the fake death of the gangster and his transition.

Manitas wants to become a woman (Karla Sofia Gascón plays both roles). And behind that desire there is a perhaps unachievable ambition: redemption from all sins.

Zoe Saldana record-breaking actress

Zoe Saldaña – who starred in the three highest-grossing films of all time, Avatars of 2009 and its sequel of 2022 The Way of Water (with Avengers: Endgame of 2019 in the middle) and is also the first actress to have on her CV four films that have each grossed more than two billion dollarswith a total nest egg of over 14 billion – is someone with a lot of bargaining power.

But that doesn’t mean having three more Avatars in production between now and 2031 is the recipe for happiness, especially if you spend half your time acting in front of a green screen with your body painted blue: «I will stay on that planet until my fiftieth birthday” he explains to iO Donna.

«I was pleasantly trapped in James Cameron’s serial machine: it’s fortunate and unfortunate, I’m not complaining, but it’s true that I worked on autopilot for a long time. And I have a family (her husband is the Italian artist Marco Peregothen there are the twins Cy Aridio and Bowie Ezio, 10 years old, and Zen, 7 years old, ed.). Time passes. I know the business, I understand how the world worksbut I had forgotten what it means to desire something. We need to be seen for the work we do and I had gotten to the point where I felt like I wasn’t being looked at the right way. The gaze I felt on myself thanks to this film instead moves me deeply.”

It’s surprising that she felt neglected, she’s a superstar.
But I’m also very shy, it’s one of the issues I addressed with psychotherapy. I can raise my voice, but I’m insecure and vulnerable when it comes to standing up for myself and my worth. When I received the script – a gangster movie with a protagonist in transition, with songs and dance scenes – I immediately wanted to be part of something so special, definitely outside the box I’m used to. But I was also afraid of nonconformity, I felt the danger. I’m American: our world is full of precautions, fears, second thoughts. Fortunately, seduction prevailed.

Zoe Saldana: “Emilia Perez challenges us to understand”

Is it just a highly awarded film and now in the running for Oscars, or is it also a useful film, in your opinion?
There is a part of me that in every project seeks the word to deliver to the world. I found it in this film: obviously it is useful, if only for the visibility it gives to trans people and for the fact of choosing an unconventional way to do it. It challenges us to try to understand what it means to decide to completely change your life and to modify your body to do so. Emilia’s character is irredeemable in my opinionbut her desire seduces you because you feel that since birth she has been trapped in a life that is not hers. And there’s definitely a story to tell in there. Which had never been told like this.

It also addresses the tragic issue of the disappeared. Which is a tragedy for all of Central and South America. If you enter that world you have to recognize what its coordinates are. I grew up in New York with Latin roots: we felt the fear of kidnapping, you couldn’t go further south than San Diego. Beyond was uncertainty, a world with no more rights.

The film satisfies the requests of those who fight against cultural appropriation, there is a trans actress to play both pre- and post-transition roles. Is it a just battle of our time?
I find it important that certain characters are played by artists who are as close to them as possible. But it cannot become an imperative. Who are we to say to an artist: you can’t do this? And I believe that Jacques’ curiosity, his desire to tell this story provides the answer to every question. He never looked at Karla as a trans woman, but as an artist, a talented person, a person, period. I see it this way: if you have an opinion about the world, exercise it, respecting others and their ideas. We cannot and must not ask for more.

Emilia Perez is definitely a female film. They’ve been making more for some time…
It is, and we should all be very happy about it. For many, many years, I believed that my opportunities came from being the only woman in a room. Without understanding that in this way I was contributing to fueling a system designed to keep us apart. We must fight to make three men stand up and create space for three women in their place. If a man does it we thank him, also because there is nothing sexier than a man who makes room for a woman. I come from a family of women. It was me and my sisters. I lost my father very early. This is the environment I feel most comfortable in: a tribe of women.

Her husband is Italian, with him she has already made a film on migration (The Absence of Eden). When you get tired of the big Hollywood machine, will you work more in Europe, in Italy?
I would like to, but I have to improve my Italian. I grew up watching your films and unlike my compatriots I have no problems with subtitles. I’m 46 years old, I feel like I’ve done a lot of things, and I’m happy with the position I occupy in the world today, but I’m still hungry for real art, I don’t want to lower my level of expectation. Emilia Perez was medicine for my spiritrepresents everything I had always wanted, starting from the possibility of working in Spanish, which is my first language (Saldaña is Afro-Latina, of Puerto Rican and Dominican origin, ed.), and of dancing again. One certainty I have is that my partner is ready to follow me wherever I go with my children.

He’s never had a problem doing it.
And this allowed me to be able to say openly: “I want to work in Europe, in Spanish, do different things and in the second part of life rediscover that condition of absence of fear that we feel when we are children.”

To use the director’s words, she belongs to the race of complete artists, «she dances, sings and knows how to do comedy». Were classical musicals part of your education?
I’m a New Yorker, there wasn’t a Friday night that my sisters and I didn’t go to the theater. On Fridays they distributed discounted tickets: you queued for hours and in the end you took the evening home. Pizza and Rent, I think I’ve seen it 15 times. But our film is not a musical. It’s an opera!

iO Donna © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED