Karla Sofía Gascón will not attend Los Angeles and Santa Barbara awards circuit events this weekend in support of Emilia Pérez as her Oscar campaign continued to unravel in the wake of bigoted social media posts, Screen has confirmed.
The Spanish actress became the first trans woman to be nominated for an Academy Award in January when she earned a lead actress nod, yet less than two weeks later Gascón was fighting to salvage her campaign and reputation after old tweets resurfaced containing offensive remarks about Muslims and George Floyd.
She quickly deactivated her X account and issued an apology that was deemed inadequate in the eyes of many in the industry, and has since given an unauthorised television interview and continued to post on social media.
Screen understands Gascón has not communicated directly with Netflix, the film’s distributor in the US and UK, since last weekend, when the company was blindsided by an hour-long interview the actor gave to CNN en Espańol in which she repeatedly broke down and asserted she will attend the Oscar ceremony on March 2.
Regardless of whether or not that outcome materialises, sources say Gascón’s European representatives informed Netflix that she will not turn up for this weekend’s roster of events. They include: the AFI Awards luncheon at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills on Thursday, followed a day later by the Critics’ Choice Awards, the PGA and DGA awards on Saturday, and the presentation of the Virtuoso Awards at Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Sunday.
The Netflix awards team is now understood to be scrambling to pivot away from Gascón as the film’s focus of FYC campaigns in the US and UK, except for existing billboards and prior commitments that are in progress.
Instead, with final Oscar voting window about to open on February 11 and run through February 18, the streamer is doing its level best to bolster pushes in the other 12 Oscar categories where Emilia Pérez is nominated – among them supporting actress nominee Zoe Saldana, best picture and international feature film, director Jacques Audiard, adapted screenplay, songwriting, and other crafts. Netflix acquired rights to Emilia Pérez after the film’s world premiere in Cannes last May and The Veterans handled remaining territory sales.
As far as Bafta goes, in-person campaigning by the film’s heavyweight contenders is already complete. Saldana, Audiard and members of the crafts team appeared at an event in London last week and are not scheduled to return until the awards ceremony on February 16. Saldana used the post-screening Q&A in London to tell the audience that she was “saddened” by Gascón’s social media posts.
Prior to the tweet exposé, Gascón had already got into hot water for claiming the social media team of Oscar rival Fernanda Torres from I’m Still Here had tried to diminish her and Emilia Pérez in general.
Netflix had not returned calls at time of writing.
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