For W’s annual The Originals portfolio, we asked stars of film, fashion, art, music, and more to share their insights on staying true to themselves. See this year’s full class of creatives here.
In Emilia Pérez, your new film, which you cowrote and directed, you tell the story of a Mexican drug lord who fakes his death in order to transition to a woman. Years later, the newly christened Emilia Pérez asks the lawyer who helped arrange her gender-affirming surgery to reunite her with her former wife and children. The film, simultaneously a musical, a melodrama, and a character study, is in Spanish, a language that you don’t speak. How did all that come about?
The idea came to me through a book called Écoute [Listen]. Halfway through, there is a character who is a drug kingpin who wants to transition to become a woman. The author, who is a friend of mine, did not develop this character. I asked for the right to expand the character myself.
Was casting Karla Sofía Gascón, a transgender actress, as Emilia Pérez crucial to making this film?
Yes. It was really hard to find the main actress. Originally, I was looking for someone between 30 and 35, and that was a huge mistake. By coincidence, I met Karla Sofía and Zoe Saldaña, who plays the lawyer, on the same day. That’s when things came together. If I hadn’t found Karla Sofía, I wouldn’t have made the film.
Selena Gomez plays her wife. Did you know who she was before you cast her?
No. I didn’t know her music at all, and I didn’t know anything about her popularity. I had seen her in a Woody Allen film.
Nobody saw that film!
I did! I met Selena in New York, early in the morning in a café. I found her so charming, I wanted to ask for her hand in marriage right away. [Laughs]
Jacques Audiard wears his own clothing, scarf, and sneakers; Akoni Eyewear sunglasses.
The stars of Emilia Pérez collectively won Best Actress at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. You have an amazing history with Cannes—you won the Palme d’Or for Dheepan and had great success with A Prophet and Rust and Bone.
They say I’m a “regular” at Cannes, but I never take it for granted. I’m always terrified. Cannes was the first time the actresses watched the film, and I was very afraid. I was ready to get down on my knees and say, “I apologize, I apologize!”
Very few of your films have been in French, your native language. Did you learn Spanish for Emilia Pérez?
[Laughs] No! I don’t speak Spanish. I don’t speak Tamil [Dheepan] or Arabic [A Prophet]. For me, there’s a music to language. The rhythm, the sound—it becomes very musical. Not knowing the language gives me a quality of detachment. When I’ve directed in my own language, I get stuck on the details. I focus too strongly on the accent, the punctuation, rather than the emotion.
Do you love the musical as a cinematic genre?
Not really. Emilia Pérez was originally conceived in the form of an opera: four acts. And set pieces with one-dimensional characters that were more like archetypes. There are still small traces of that in the film. That’s why we shot on a soundstage rather than on location. I scouted a lot in Mexico, but after my third trip, I realized that was silly of me. We took it all back to a soundstage in Paris.
What is the first film you remember seeing?
I was around 6, and the church organized a screening of The Ten Commandments, with Charlton Heston as Moses. I was overcome by fear. It was shocking.
Did seeing the film spark your desire to make films?
Pas du tout. Absolutely not. My father is a very famous screenwriter in France. And since I’m a bad son, I didn’t want to follow in my father’s footprints. I was very pretentious—I wanted to be a philosopher. I entered into the world of cinema by way of editing. And because of love: A film editor was my girlfriend.
In many of your films, there is a primal search for freedom, for the chance to live a different life. Emilia Pérez dramatically reinvents herself: not only her gender but her profession, relationships, and entire worldview.
In my films, my question often is, how many lives do we have a right to? We have one original life, and we know the costs and benefits of that life. If we had the chance for another life, what would be the price? In Emilia Pérez, I was fascinated by the paradox of a person being very successful in a hyper-virile world and, at the same time, she is a woman. What is her life like when she is not able to express her true nature? She was, in fact, in a kind of prison. But even so, her new life comes at a cost.
Emilia Pérez took you many years to develop. Do you have other projects percolating? Does Hollywood pursue you?
No. Hollywood doesn’t send me anything! [Laughs] And I don’t mind. I don’t think I would like working in Hollywood. But I do try to be contemporary to my time: 10 years ago, Emilia Pérez would not have occurred to me.
Who is an original to you?
I prefer the term “renegade” because every true original is a renegade. To me, in cinema, David Lynch. In art, it’s Francis Bacon. In literature, Philip Roth. In order to put myself with these people, I have to accept my mediocrity. Those three are in another league. They are heroes.
Grooming by Stacy Skinner for Beau Domaine at Celestine Agency; Photo Assistant: Diego Perez, Fashion Assistant: Maia Wilson. Special Thanks to Metrograph.
