Italian
Selena Gomez has responded to Eugenio Derbez after he criticized her “Emilia Pérez” performance.
While appearing on the Spanish language entertainment podcast “Hablando de Cine”, the “Coda” star slammed Gomez’s use of Spanish in the film as “indefensible.” Gomez, who is not a native speaker, plays Jessi del Monte in Jacques Audiard’s musical crime drama about a drug lord who escapes his life of brutality to transition in secret with the help of a sentimental lawyer (Zoe Saldana).
“Selena is indefensible,” Derbez said of the performance. “I [watched ‘Emilia Pérez’] with people, and every time she had a scene, we looked at each other to say, ‘Wow, what is this?’”
“Hablando de Cine” host Gaby Meza echoed Derbez. Although she acknowledged Gomez as a “very talented actress,” she emphasized that “Spanish is not her main language, not her secondary or fifth,” which severely dampers the “nuance” of her performance.
Popular on Variety “I feel like she doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Menza said. “If she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she can’t give her acting any nuance.”
Derbez added that he did enjoy the film outside of Gomez’s role, crediting it as “an interesting experiment.” But he couldn’t help but wonder why the French director Audiard would take on a story rooted in a culture that is completely foreign to him.
“I liked the film, aside from the Selena [moments] that jump at you, because it has salvageable things,” said Derbez. “But I told myself, ‘How weird that the director doesn’t speak English or Spanish and the movie is in Spanish and English, and it takes place in Mexico and you don’t understand the culture.’ It’s like if I made a film in Russian without knowing the culture or speaking Russian and talk in French.”
After the clip circulated on TikTok, Gomez commented on a post of Derbez’s criticisms.
“I understand where you are coming from. I’m sorry I did the best I could with the time I was given,” Gomez wrote. “Doesn’t take away from how much work and heart I put into this movie.”
Despite Derbez’s remarks, “Emilia Pérez” remains a front-runner for this year’s Academy Awards, vying for nominations for best picture, best director and best actress.
