LOS ANGELES (AP) — Zoe Saldaña earned her first Academy Award for finest supporting actress in “Emilia Pérez,” capping an already completed awards season Sunday.
“Mami! Mami!” a tearful Saldaña stated. “My mom is here. My whole family is here. I am floored by this honor. Thank you to the academy for recognizing the quiet heroism and the power in a woman like Rita and talking about powerful women. My fellow nominees, the love and community that you have offered to me is a true gift, and I will pay it forward.”
Saldaña accepted the award from the reigning winner within the class, Da’Vine Pleasure Randolph.
The win provides to a group of successes for the star on the awards circuit: Saldaña gained her first Golden Globe in January, and notched wins on the British Academy Movie Awards, the Critics Selection Awards and Display Actors Guild Awards.
“My grandmother came to this country in 1961. I am a proud child of immigrant parents. With dreams and dignity and hard working hands,” Saldaña stated. “And I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award. And I know I will not be the last.”
Saldaña, a front-runner within the class, was amongst a roster of actors additionally nominated for the primary time, together with Monica Barbaro in “A Complete Unknown,” Ariana Grande in “Wicked,” and Isabella Rossellini in “Conclave.” Felicity Jones, nominated for her position in “The Brutalist,” was beforehand nominated in 2015.
In “Emilia Pérez,” Saldaña performed the down-on-her-luck lawyer Rita Castro, employed by a Mexican drug lord to assist facilitate gender-affirming surgical procedure. That drug lord turns into Emilia Pérez, performed by finest actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, the primary brazenly transgender actor nominated for an Oscar.
“The fact that I am getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish, my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted,” Saldaña famous.
Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language narco-musical had a number one 13 nominations heading into the Oscars, however an already contentious movie generated much more controversy after outdated offensive tweets by Gascón surfaced. The movie additionally obtained backlash for its depiction of Mexican tradition.
Saldaña, whose position highlights her vary by way of track and dance, was not spared from critique as some claimed she was within the mistaken class, with extra display screen time than Gascón.
An emotional Saldaña final week, and in earlier acceptance speeches, credited “Emilia Pérez” with being a movie about id and love.
“I’ve never been questioned about where I come from or judged by how I speak or what my pronouns are. I believe that everybody has the right to be who they are and ‘Emilia Perez’ is about truth and is about love,” she stated in accepting the award for finest actress in a supporting position on the Display Actors Guild Awards. “I think that us as actors, now more than ever before, we really have to tell stories that are beautiful and thought-provoking and live within the spectrum of artistic freedom.”
Saldaña, whose profession spans practically 25 years, is thought for her roles in main franchises akin to “Star Trek” as Uhura, “Avatar” as Na’vi princess Neytiri, and within the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Gamora, the green-complexioned alien assassin-turned-Guardian of the Galaxy.
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