In ‘Emilia Pérez,’ Zoe Saldaña Finally Gets a Chance to ‘Explode’

2024 worked out so well for Zoe Saldaña that she has gotten a bit superstitious about predicting what’s next. “I don’t want to say exactly what I would want to do or try to find something specific, because then I don’t want to create unrealistic expectations,” the actress told IndieWire over Zoom. 

Saldaña happens to be in an extra celebratory mood after her film “Emilia Pérez” and live-action short “Dovecote” (directed by her husband Marco Perego) both made it onto the shortlists for the Oscars 2025. “In one year… we couldn’t have done this if we planned it,” she said.

Her turn as Rita, the passive lawyer sucked into the world of a Mexican drug lord seeking gender-affirming surgery, in the Jacques Audiard-directed “Emilia Pérez,” has specifically been the culmination of things she’s manifested for her career in recent years. “I just felt like, at different times, ‘I want to speak Spanish in a story.’ ‘I want to dance at some point in my life.’ ‘Oh, maybe a musical. It’d be nice to sing outside of the shower.’ But it wasn’t all one thing,” said Saldaña. “And then I just remember always watching Jacques’s work and going, ‘God, I wish a girl like me could work with a filmmaker like that.’ Because his characters have always just penetrated in such a way, and I couldn’t get over them after, for days and weeks.”

Well, Saldaña finally got to work with the French auteur. Perhaps predictably, her character Rita is one that continues to have a presence in her life, with Saldaña sharing a Best Actress award with her costars Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz, and Selena Gomez at the Cannes Film Festival, where “Emilia Pérez” premiered and was acquired by Netflix; Saldaña also earned Best Supporting Actress nominations at the upcoming Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. 

“I definitely saw her as an observer,” said the star, describing her role in the acclaimed film. “And I don’t know if it’s because Rita is just incredibly timid. She’s very smart. That’s her superpower. She’s so intelligent. She knows how to discover the loopholes and advocate for people, whether for all the right or wrong reasons, but she doesn’t know how to do that for herself.” Saldaña added, “I just felt her also as a woman of color that is always asked to join a community — as long as she never forgets what her place is.” 

‘Emilia Pérez’PAGE 114 – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS – PATHÉ FILMS – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA

Saldaña, who is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent, was given the freedom to personalize Rita, incorporating her own experience “as a daughter of immigrants, shedding light on, also, the Afro Latino experience in Latin America, how we are products of colonization and classism and colorism,” she said. “I lived through those experiences, of how a community’s loss of identity becomes innocent people’s problem. And I was able to familiarize [and] relate to Rita’s suffocation, knowing that she has all this potential and she deserves so much more. And yet, she may not ever attain any of it for circumstances that she can’t control, nor does she want to ever change.”

Starring in “Emilia Pérez” became a liberating experience for the actress who was best known beforehand for being a pivotal player in the ensembles of billion dollar sci-fi franchises like “Avatar,” “Star Trek,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.” With the unconventional, operatic crime drama, “I went all in. I felt her spirit, and I felt that a lot more people were going to find themselves in Rita,” Saldaña said.

That is not to say she feels anything other than grateful for those other roles, they just come with less control. “When you are a part of great stories that aren’t necessarily centered around your character, if you have so much energy and you believe so much, and you have all these ideas on how things can turn out, it doesn’t necessarily make it the project’s fault and it doesn’t make it the filmmaker’s fault,” she said. “Whether I played a big part or a small part, I always took it with immense responsibility. I cared so much, and I wanted so much more.”

Her work on “Avatar” with director James Cameron actually set the standard for how Saldaña likes to collaborate. “He was the first director that gave me a platform to fully execute a character from beginning to end. And there was no such thing ever as a bad decision or a stupid question,” she said. “Whether or not my role was this small or that big, I felt so important. I felt so heard and seen. And my entire life, I just want to find those people again, and I want to work in those environments. Because I know that I am a very outspoken person, and I’m very passionate, and I am very hardworking, and I love what I do enormously. So, I just need to be a part of projects that allow me to explode well with all this energy. That way, I don’t feel like I’m too much.”

Adriana Paz, Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez attend the ‘Emilia Perez’ Photocall at the 77th annual Cannes Film FestivalNeilson Barnard/Getty Images

However, for as lovely as those experiences often were, they did not come with the opportunity to share the screen with many other women. “When you’re the only one, a lot falls on your shoulders. You can’t make a mistake. Because if you’re the only female, you really have to make sure that you executed it [correctly],” Saldaña said. “Emilia Pérez” did not offer the same stressors. “When you are a part of a sisterhood, you are all carrying the weight. So when you understand that, you devote your time and energy just on your character’s journey. You don’t overthink and you don’t sabotage yourself, and you don’t get in your own way thinking, ‘Oh my God, did I look cute here?’”

And it wasn’t just acting opposite Gascón, Gomez, and Paz that made “Emilia Pérez” a fulfilling experience for Saldaña. Audiard’s set offered all different types of expert artisans that helped set her up for success. Saldaña reflected upon what it was like to shoot “El Mal,” the film’s centerpiece number in which Rita, dressed in an crimson power suit, gets to (internally) castigate the criminally rich attendees of her and Emilia’s charity fundraiser, set to an electrifying composition from composers Camille and Clément Ducol. “What needed to be front and center was her rage,” Saldaña said.

In the moment, Saldaña recalled being so focused on dance rehearsals with Damien Jalet that she questioned costume designer Virginie Montel’s request to change wardrobe into her character’s now-iconic red suit. “They just wanted to see what kind of lighting [worked with it], because even the DP Paul Guilhaume would sometimes come to these rehearsals,” she said. “And then I was noticing that something was changing. Every time I would wear this red suit, I’m just like, ‘What the?’ I felt suave and smooth, and then channeling a fire that soon enough, I recognized was Rita’s rage.”

Saldaña likens the scene to a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde moment for her character. “Rita finally had the opportunity to say, ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! You’re a criminal. You’re a fucking piece of shit. You’re a whore.’ And she would never say any of that. She wouldn’t dare. She would always be like, ‘Well, if you want to. What would you like to do?’ This was her opportunity.”

Ultimately, Saldaña said, “I’m very grateful that Jacques visualized this moment for my character. And I am even more grateful that he had his collaborators, his great conspirators, put it together and included me in the process.” The fact that both her performance of “El Mal” and her work in the film itself are still a subject of conversation in the months since people first saw “Emilia Pérez” has been a welcome change of pace. 

“For an instant, it makes me feel connected to humanity in a time where I really was yearning for it,” Saldaña said. “I really feel proud of my journey, and proud of the things that I’ve added to my repertoire. And all I hope is that I continue to be just granted the privilege of growing and evolving in my life, not just as a person but also as an artist because I know now that I don’t want to do anything else.” 

“Emilia Pérez” is now streaming on Netflix.