Zoe Saldaña has already given us so much – emotionally pivotal characters in three bestselling film franchises, on top of a long list of TV and movie credits – her role in Netflix’s genre-busting new thriller/musical hybrid “Emilia Pérez” feels like icing on a very rich cake.
The “Avatar” star acts, sings and even raps in “Pérez,” and does it all in Spanish, her first major role in the language. Saldaña – whose father was from the Dominican Republic and mother is Puerto Rican – told Elle Magazine in an interview published this week that the opportunity to use her bilingual fluency “never really came” before now.
“Either the project just wasn’t the right fit for me or an Afro-Caribbean Latina wasn’t the right fit for the project,” she said.
“It’s a combination of a director’s vision, which you want to be respectful of and honor, and the other side, colonialism and colorism, which is rampant in Latin America,” Saldaña added. “I was very much like, ‘Well, that’s okay, I’m going to dance to the beat of my own drum and I’ll go to space and I’ll be green and I’ll be blue (in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Avatar” films, respectively) and I’ll do all those things.’ Then 15 years go by, and I’m yearning for that reconnection.”
“Emilia Pérez,” directed by Jacques Audiard and based on the 2018 novel “Écoute” by Boris Razon, opens with Saldaña’s Rita, an overworked and underappreciated lawyer in Mexico who wins a case and becomes ensnared in a cartel boss’s dealings.
The opening number alone is enough to indicate that “Pérez” is unlike any movie musical to come before it, and it’s led by Saldaña, in elaborate sequences that weave in and out of reality and involve teams of supporting players and backup dancers.
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