Spanish actress talks about the role that’s winning her Oscar buzz, response to the movie, and how her own transition influenced the story.
Karla Sofía Gascón wants to be in the light. It’s a warm late-October day in Los Angeles, and the actress has arrived for a lunch date at the Sunset Marquis in a silky black dress and a bare face. In English, she asks the restaurant waiter for a sunlit table. In Spanish, she turns to me and says, self-mockingly, “I seem likeGascón is in L.A. today for what feels like a fleeting moment.
GASCON, 52, WAS BORN in Spain and raised near Madrid. The acting bug bit her in her teens, but she was only able to book small parts and commercials. On the advice of a director, she moved to Mexico, where she got a foothold in the industry with recurring roles in some of the country’s iconic telenovelas, including 2009’s. All the while, she was grappling with her true identity. Finally, in 2016, she decided to step out of the public eye for a time and move back to Spain to transition.
Gascón says she loves how the film turned out, but she believes Audiard left some material on the table. She thinks it would be great to learn more of her character’s backstory, including Emilia’s experience with gender dysphoria. She confesses that she’s even suggested they make a prequel. “I’m serious,” she says. “I’ve told him that there are things I wish I could’ve seen, but I can’t tell you.
Gascón, who is married with a 14-year-old daughter, recounts the anguish she faced while dating a female politician when she was living in Mexico. That partner at the time knew about her plans to have gender-affirming surgery, but “when she realized it was true that I’d transition, she said, ‘This is going to fuck up my political work.’ And that killed me,” she explains. “I was left alone… It was such a dark experience that brought me to the verge of suicide.
THE FILM IS GENERATING conversation not just around the trans experience but other kinds of representation, too. One Mexican writer describedwithout Mexicans,” calling out the actors’ diction in the film, along with its foreign-perspective portrayal of the country’s culture. Gascón understands the critique. “Kidnappings, bad people, drug traffickers exist everywhere. Why do we focus on Mexico so much?” she muses. “Probably because it’s next to the U.S.
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