KARLA SOFÍA GASCÓN REFUSES TO COMPROMISE

The Emilia Pérez star poured a lifetime of experience and hard-won truths into the year's buzziest performance

- TOMÁS MIER

Karla Sofia Gascón wants to be in the light. It's a warm late-October day in Los Angeles, and the actress has arrived for lunch at the Sunset Marquis in a silky black dress and a bare face. In English, she asks the waiter for a sunlit table. In Spanish, she turns to me and jokes, "I seem like la Sofia Vergara with my accent. But I guess it's part of the appeal."

For months, Gascón has been crisscrossing the globe promoting her musical-drama-comedy Emilia Pérez (streaming on Netflix), in which she stars as the title character. At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in May, she became the first openly trans person to win Best Actress, alongside castmates Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, and Adriana Paz. The film, from writer-director Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone), also captured the Jury Prize there. Gascón just arrived from Mexico, where she received another award for the role.

"I think the immigration officials suspect I might be trafficking drugs," she says with a laugh. "They look at me with a weird face."