- Emilia Perez is an award season darling
- It stars Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofia Gascon
- It is available to watch on Netflix
Emilia Perez is one of the runaway hits this awards season.
With a star-studded cast of Karla Sofia Gascón, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez, it tells the story of a lawyer helping a Mexican transgender cartel leader to fake her own death and undergo gender reassignment surgery.
One thing that some have been wondering is if the tale is based on real life. Well, we can confirm for you the story is fictional! Emilia Perez might bear similarities to other stories, but it is based on a novel.
The movie’s director, Jacques Audriard, has gone on record to state he was inspired to co-write it with Thomas Bidegan after reading the 2018 book Écoute by Boris Razon.
He told W magazine, “The author, who is a friend of mine, did not develop this character. I asked for the right to expand the character myself.”
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What has the cast said about the Emilia Perez script?
Salanda – who plays the attorney Rita Mora Castro – admitted she was obsessed with the musical when she first heard about it.
“It was described to me as this film noir that didn’t really exist in any of the conventional kind of genres, but it was a musical. It was actually an opera, and based in a crime world, but there was going to be a sense of justice, and validation, and sanctification,” she told Netflix’s Tudum.
“And I was just like, ‘What?’ I had to read it more than once. And then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it,”
Gascón dubbed it “an action movie that’s not an action movie, a drama that’s not a drama, a comedy that’s not a comedy,” before calling starring as the titular character as a “a great gift”.
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Gomez reflected on the journey her character Jessi Del Monte, the wife of Juan Del Monte who seeks to live as Perez, goes on the Golden Globe-winning flick.
She added, “In the beginning of the film, Jessi is very much content with the life that she’s living with the family in Mexico, and that’s kind of where she was rooted. I think she gets so discombobulated once there is a sudden move, and she doesn’t know what to do.”
