A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The nominations for the Golden Globes are in. Among the hopefuls - the first openly transgender woman in a film's lead actress category.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Karla Sofia Gascon is the star of the musical "Emilia Perez," which earned 10 nominations. The movie's about the leader of a Mexican drug cartel, Juan Manitas del Monte. Manitas was assigned male at birth and lived as a male until having gender-affirming surgery, taking the name Emilia Perez and trying to leave the old life behind.
MARTÍNEZ: I spoke with Gascon last month through an interpreter, and I asked how she convinced a director to let her play both roles.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
KARLA SOFIA GASCON: (Through interpreter) Well, the first thing that I did, which is funny - I sent videos of myself. And I love dubbing, so I did the video with a deeper range than my own. And I used Snapchat filters that, you know, put beards. When I explained it to them, they laughed so hard. And I realized that they believed in me - for the first time that they believed in me, and they thought that I could do it. It was on a trip to Paris when they took a mold of my face and tried a different prosthesis because they wanted the characters to not look alike at all from beginning to end. He wanted a huge transformation that would have a big impact in the audience. Think of it like "Beauty And The Beast."
MARTÍNEZ: In the film, the Israeli surgeon who performs the surgery warns Manitas' lawyer, Rita, that a wolf will always remain a wolf. Is Emilia Perez's moral redemption from Manitas a real redemption?
GASCON: (Through interpreter) The way I saw my character is it was somebody who was pretending to be bad, who was having others, you know, do these bad things, but it wasn't truly what he was doing. So that's how I was able to see it so that then Emilia could have the big redemption. Now, as a person, we cannot redeem, fix or undo our past sins. But what we can do is we can do things better. That's the real message of the movie, is we cannot fix those past mistakes. But what we can do is do the right thing.
MARTIN: Karla Sofia Gascon has been winning one award after another since "Emilia Perez" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May.
MARTÍNEZ: Next month, we'll find out if she won that Golden Globe. We'll also learn if she can add an Oscar nomination to that list. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
