At the Golden Globes on Sunday, Emilia Perez won the final award of the evening, best comedy or musical, and star Karla Sofía Gascón shared a message of hope during her emotional acceptance speech.
“I chose this [dress] color tonight, the Buddhist color, because I have a message of hope for you: the light always wins over darkness,” Gascón said. “I have a lot of things to say to you because you can maybe put us in jail, you can beat us up, but you never can take away our soul, our resistance, or our identity. And I want to say to you, raise your voice and say, ‘I am who I am, not who you want.'”
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Emilia Perez, co-produced by Saint Laurent Productions, centers on a cartel leader (Gascón) who hires an attorney (Saldaña) in a plan to fake her death so that she can transition into a woman and live as her true self. Selena Gomez also stars. Gascón broke out with Emilia Pérez, the bold crime musical directed by Audiard that Netflix picked up out of Cannes. Gascón was honored with the Cannes best actress award, marking the first time a transgender woman has won the award.
Despite being nominated at the Globes for best actress, Demi Moore ended up winning for The Substance. When addressing the loss backstage, Gascón said, “Of course, I’m very happy for this strive, for this benchmark that we just hit. But I had to admit it’s a little bittersweet because it feels incomplete. But at the same time, I’m so happy for Demi because in Cannes, she was in my shoes. She saw me on stage, accepting the award, and I think now we are tied. And now we need to break the tie.”
At the Globes, Emilia Perez was nominated alongside Anora (Neon), Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios), A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures), The Substance (Mubi) and Wicked (Universal Pictures).
Nicolas Cage presented the award, and director writer and producer Jacques Audiard accepted the award before Gascón took over. Emilia Pérez won best non-English language film as well, while the song “El Mal” won best original song and Saldaña won best supporting actress. Heading into Sunday’s ceremony, Emilia Pérez landed the most nominations of any feature film with 10.
Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that also owns The Hollywood Reporter.
For a full list of winners, click here.
