When Karla Sofía Gascón was little, the first film that impacted her was Return of the Jedi. He made lightsabers out of fluorescent lights and played at being a Jedi. She would never have believed it if she had been told that many years later (she is now 52) she would be sitting next to George Lucas minutes before winning the award for Best Female Performance at Cannes for Emilia Perezthe narco-trans musical by Jacques Audiard in which he gives life to the character that gives the film its name.
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The award is collective along with the other three actresses in the film, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gómez and Adriana Paz. The last time (and the only time) that a Spanish actress won the best actress award at Cannes was, also, jointly. They were Almodóvar’s women in Return those who made history by getting the jury to ask permission so that everyone could receive the award: Blanca Portillo, Lola Dueñas, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Carmen Maura and Penélope Cruz. In another nod that unites both historical events, Karla Sofía Gascón is also from, paraphrasing Cruz’s speech at the Oscars, “a place called Alcobendas, where this was not a very realistic dream.”
Being the one who continues this legacy of Spanish actresses makes Gascón very happy, but he makes it clear that he is not replacing anyone, but rather adding to that list. “We are people who work and who want to do the best we know how, and who give all our affection and love for our work. Look, at 52 years of age, smallpox, as they say,” says the actress minutes after winning the award and managing to move everyone with her speech against hate speech against trans women (she is the first actress of the group in achieve).
In front of the entire Cannes Festival Palace, the actress left one of those speeches that remains etched in memory. “To all the trans people who are suffering hate and seeing how they denigrate us. This is for you. Tomorrow this news will be full of comments from terrible people saying terrible things about us. I want to send a message of hope to all of us. We all have the opportunity to change for the better. So let’s see if you change, bastards,” she said, leaving everyone with tears in their eyes.
Karla Sofía Gascón is expansive, chatty and spontaneous. So much so that when she appears to the applause of the Spanish press, the first thing she asks is to sit down because they have put “Sandokan’s shoes” on her. She calmly re-emphasizes the things she said in her speech. “When you go on stage and have the opportunity to say such a profound message, it can help so many people in this world… This award is for me, but also for all those people who fight to be themselves and to be better.” people, because no one has to tell us what we have to do with our bodies.”
Until now the only thing they had given me was kicks, so whatever they give me I am happy.
Karla Sofía Gascón — Actress
He asks that this award be a turning point, because “it’s enough for so much pain.” “I said it the other day right here. It’s enough to have certain people belittling us and acting violently. I hope this award serves so that, even if it is just one, there is a family that has one of their children in this situation and does not throw them out of their house,” he adds, in the midst of a hangover from a moment that he knows he will remember all his life. . “Until now the only thing they had given me was kicks, so whatever they give me I am happy,” he said again with humor but also downplaying its importance. She already knows what it means to succeed. In Mexico she acted in the highest-grossing film in her history, We the noble, “and exactly the same thing happened.” “People came and told me that they had seen it twice, the president sent us a letter… and this is a bit of reliving the same thing but in France,” he remembers.
Karla Sofía Gascón’s activism has one goal, and that is for the trans label to stop being used because it is no longer necessary: “I’m a little fed up, yes. Sometimes they take me badly, even in the group I belong to, but I do really believe that it is okay to use it when there is something to praise. Using it like this seems wonderful to me because it praises a minority that is vilified, that is crushed. But you know, that tomorrow, when we start reading the news or Twitter or X, whatever it’s called now, everything will be insults.”
“They will tell me that I am taking an award from a woman and many other absurd things. And I have already argued a lot. I argued in a country for years because I am very guerrilla, but on this occasion this speaks for itself. I don’t have to start arguing with anyone anymore, let everyone do what they want and let them take as an example what I said at the end of the speech when I was collecting the award, that I believe that there really is hope for them to change “that hatred and evil that they have to create something beautiful,” he says.
As for all Spanish actresses, the dream that one day Almodóvar will call her flies over her imagination, and although she tries not to tell it, the emotion gets the better of her and she confesses to the press that they have told her that he wanted to talk to her: “But how come I don’t have his phone number, he must have called and spoken to my daughter, who is the one who had it. I hope we can work together or at least greet each other, because for me he is an idol. I dedicated one of the books I wrote to him, because he has been an inspiration to me. What he has done for Spain, and especially for diverse people, who are not diverse because we are the same as everyone else and it seems that we are weirdos, is something wonderful.”