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Karla Sofía Gascón, the Spanish-born star of Emilia Pérez, was nominated Thursday morning for the 2025 Oscars for best actress, making her the first openly transgender performer to be so honored. (The only known previous trans acting nominee, Elliot Page, got the nod in 2008 for Juno, 12 years before revealing his gender identity.)

Gascón was recognized for her performance in the Jacques Audiard-directed musical drama as a Mexican cartel leader who transitions and dedicates herself to aiding the victims of gang violence. She stars opposite fellow Oscar nominee Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz; all four shared the best actress prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The actress tells The Hollywood Reporter she watched the nominations from an airport lounge in Brazil. “It was completely crazy, I didn’t sleep all night,” she says. “What an illusion, what an honor, what love. I feel fulfilled, it is the...

Netflix's award-winning musical crime comedy Emilia Perez has ignited its share of controversy, and star Karla Sofía Gascón is addressing that backlash. Gascón leads the star-studded film as a former Mexican cartel leader, Juan "Manitas" Del Monte, who embarks on a transformative journey to become the titular character. For her portrayal, Gascón has garnered critical acclaim, a Cannes Film Festival win, and is a major awards season contender. Should she receive an Oscar nod for Best Actress - and she is expected to - Gascón will be the first openly trans woman to earn a nomination in the category. She's already made history as the first trans woman in the Golden Globes' Best Actress race (that win went to co-star Zoe Saldaña).

Despite a phenomenal cast and awards season buzz, Emilia Pérez has received significant criticism since its release. During a conversation with Vanity Fair, Gascón spoke about the...

Karla Sofía Gascón reads the hate. All of it. Alongside the flood of praise for her lead performance in the late-breaking Oscar favorite Emilia Pérez, a steady trickle of vitriol has flowed in the gutters of social media. When we meet in her native Madrid, Gascón takes out her phone to show me messages she has screenshotted and marked up. “I hope you die before you make another movie,” spewed one X user. After beloved Spanish actress Marisa Paredes passed away a few days before our interview, another anonymous online wit mused, “I wish you could have died instead of her.” She’s also received death threats in Mexico, where Emilia Pérez is set and where she has spent much of her professional life: “I was told I would be found dismembered in a bag.”

Should she be nominated for an Oscar, which most pundits expect, Gascón is poised to...

The first time I meet Karla Sofía Gascón is on a London stage. I’m wrapping up a group interview in front of a live audience for Jacques Audiard’s film Emilia Pérez, and as the director, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz all file off into the wings to boisterous applause, I notice that Gascón, the titular actress, has stopped. She turns 180 degrees and heads back across the stage. The clapping becomes uncertain. They don’t really know her. They haven’t seen the film yet. What is happening?

Up close to me, she says softly, “This was a small interview.” Oh god, is she upset? It’s true that these event interviews are, by necessity, fairly brief. But then, suddenly, she hugs me tightly. Oh, I think. She doesn’t care how any of this looks; she hasn’t noticed the schedule or the so-called order of things,...

After missing out on sending “Anatomy of a Fall” as its official entry, the stakes are high for France’s revamped Oscar committee to avoid missing out on another opportunity to give the country its first Oscar win for best international feature in over three decades. But don’t expect the French to make the obvious choice.

On paper, Jacques Audiard’s exhilarating redemption thriller “Emilia Perez,” which won two major awards at the Cannes Film Festival along and earned rave reviews, is a shoo-in. Audiard is a revered French auteur who won a Palme d’Or with “Dheepan,” was previously nominated for a foreign-language Oscar with “A Prophet” and is well known internationally. “Emilia Perez,” which stars Karla Sofía Gascón as a fearsome drug lord who embraces his true self as a woman, struck a chord at Cannes where it earned one of this year’s longest standing ovations.

Barbara Butch is a self-proclaimed “love activist.” This, she says, is why her feelings weren’t hurt when her appearance in the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony unleashed an avalanche of death threats, abuse and harassment.

The French DJ was the centerpiece of a tableau during the four-hour event on July 26. Drag queens and dancers struck poses along a long table with Butch on the decks in the middle. Singer Philippe Katerine, painted in sparkly blue and semi-naked, sang while resting on a dinner platter in front.

Social media users were quick to claim the image resembled Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, the portrait of Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles before he was crucified. Suddenly, Butch was caught at the center of mass backlash.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the highest-ranking Catholic official in Malta and Vatican official for its doctrinal office, said he contacted France’s ambassador to Valletta to complain about the “gratuitous insult.

A French DJ and LGBTQ+ rights icon said she has filed police reports over targeted death threats for her participation in a section of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony where comparisons were drawn to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

During the four-hour ceremony on Friday, drag queens and dancers at one point struck poses along a long table as Barbara Butch DJed in the center. A person painted sparkly blue, singing in French, was resting on a dinner platter in front. Some social media users said the image resembled the portrait of Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles before he was crucified, which became the center of swift backlash.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, French far-right politician Marion Maréchal and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker were among those berating the tableau. “Last night’s mockery of The Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world,...

Updated: Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony, has denied a controversial scene featuring drag queens was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Jolly told news channel Bfmtv on Sunday that the tableau has nothing to do with the iconic Renaissance painting depicting Jesus’s last meal with the 12 apostles as he tells them that one of their number will betray him.

“It’s not my inspiration and that should be pretty obvious. There’s Dionysus arriving on a table. Why is he there? First and foremost because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology and the tableau is called ‘Festivity’,” explained Jolly.

“He is also the god of wine, which is also one of the jewels of France, and the father of Séquana, the goddess of the river Seine,” he continued. “The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus,...

The Opening Ceremony at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games featured numerous performances, but there was one in particular that drew mixed reactions, including outrage from conservative leaders.

During the four-hour ceremony on Friday, drag queens and dancers at one point struck poses along a long table as a person painted sparkly blue, singing in French, was resting on a dinner platter in front. Some people quickly took to social media to say that the image resembled Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper portrait of Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles before he was crucified.

The table later transformed into a catwalk for models and drag queens to showcase Paris’ fashion scene.

House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X (formerly Twitter) following the performance, “Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The...

Afternoon, Cannes is over but the world of film and TV rumbles on. Here’s your weekly dose of Insider news ‘n’ goss from Max Goldbart. Make us happy and sign up here.

What’s In A Phrase?

Complaints filed: We could fill these very pages with news and analysis about the so-called ‘culture wars’ almost every week, but the past seven days has been ripe with incident. When Karla Sofia Gascón (pictured) became the first transgender actress to win the Cannes Best Actress prize for Jacques Audiard’s gangster musical Emilia Perez last weekend she would have felt only joy, but that joy swiftly turned sour after French far-right politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen responded to the win on X with: “So a man has won the Best Actress prize… progress for the left is the erasure of women and mothers.” Palms could be heard hitting faces across the land.

“Emilia Pérez” breakout star Karla Sofía Gascón, who won the best actress prize at Cannes Film Festival alongside Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, has filed a complaint against French far-right politician Marion Marechal alleging “sexist insult due to one’s gender identity.”

The charges stem from a post on X in which Marechal, who is currently campaigning in European elections for the far-right Reconquête party, wrote upon Gascón’s win at Cannes that “it is therefore a man who receives in Cannes the prize for… best actress. The progress for the left wing is the erasing of women and mothers.”

The vitriolic social post sparked outrage within the LGBTQ community and beyond. Gascón’s lawsuit follows a complaint lodged by six LGBTQ groups on Monday for “transphobic insult.”

Speaking to Variety, Etienne Deshoulières, the lawyer who represents both Gascón and the LGBTQ organizations, said Gascón took legal action...

Karla Sofia Gascón has filed a complaint with the Paris Public Prosecutor against French far-right leader Marion Maréchal-Le Pen for transphobic comments the politician posted on social media following her Best Actress win at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend.

Gascón made history on Saturday as the first transgender actress to win the Cannes Best Actress prize alongside co-stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz for their performances in Jacques Audiard’s gangster musical Emilia Perez.

Responding to the win on X, Maréchal Le Pen wrote: “So a man has won the Best Actress prize… progress for the left is the erasure of women and mothers.”

Gascón’s complaint is for “sexist contempt related to gender identity”. The offence carries a $4,066 fine.

In a statement, Gascón’s lawyer Etienne Deshoulières explained the offence had been introduced into France’s Criminal Code in April 2023 to combat “offensive and...

French LGBT+ groups have filed a complaint with the Paris Public Prosecutor against far-right politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen accusing her of “transphobic insult” for comments she made about Karla Sofía Gascón’s Best Actress win at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend.

Gascón made history as the first transgender actress to win the Cannes Best Actress prize alongside co-stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz for their performances in Jacques Audiard gangster musical Emilia Perez.

In response to the win, Maréchal Le Pen posted on X: “So a man has won the Best Actress prize… progress for the left is the erasure of women and mothers.”

Spanish actress Gascón, who plays a Mexican drug lord undergoing a sex change, dedicated the prize to “all trans people who suffer every day” and evoked the struggles of trans people in the face of prejudice.

French LGBT+ orgs Mousse, LGBT Families,...