The colleagues of a so-called “transgender actress” have come out disavowing “her” ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards, where “she” is the first openly transgender actor to receive a nomination.
To recap, late last month, Townhall reported how Karla Sofía Gascón, who is from Spain, became the first "openly transgender actress” to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Gascón plays the lead in the musical “Emilia Pérez,” which is about a Mexican cartel boss who undergoes “gender-affirming surgery” to live as a woman.
At first, the left was overjoyed that Gascón could be a “trailblazer” by becoming the first transgender nominated for an Academy Award. This excitement was short-lived.
As Townhall reported, Gascón was removed from the “Emilia Pérez” Oscar campaign over statements he made on social media in the past that were deemed “racist,” among other things. Additionally, Gascón will no longer be allowed to attend a slew of awards dinners leading up to the Oscars. This is because Netflix, which owns the distribution rights to “Emilia Pérez,” has decided to distance itself from Gascón.
Gascón has also been removed from email marketing campaigns and ad-reads promoting the film. This was done, in part, to keep “Emilia Pérez’s” other nominees “clear from the Gascón debris field,” The Hollywood Reporter noted.
Now, “Emilia Pérez’s” director, Jacques Audiard, has disavowed Gascón.
"It's very hard for me to think back to the work I did with Karla Sofía. The trust we shared, the exceptional atmosphere that we had on the set that was indeed based on trust. And when you have that kind of relationship and suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected. It’s as if you fall into a hole. Because what Karla Sofía said is inexcusable,” he told Deadline in an interview.
“I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to. She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in…I’m not getting in touch with her because right now she needs space to reflect and take accountability for her actions,” he added. “She’s really playing the victim. She’s talking about herself as a victim, which is surprising. It’s as if she thought that words don’t hurt.”
Zoe Saldaña, another actress in the film who is nominated for an Oscar, spoke out on the situation as well.
“I’m very sad. I’m also disappointed,” Saldaña said about Gascón’s old comments on Thursday’s episode of Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, adding that she “can’t speak for other people’s actions.”
Saldaña claimed that the crew and filmmakers were “all about inclusivity and collaboration and equality of all sorts, and so it’s sad that we are here.”
“I’m taking it day by day and that joy is starting to kind of come back again,” she said, adding that she is “taking my time to process” the situation.
Saldaña stated that she does “not support any negative rhetoric of racism and bigotry towards any group of people.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member