Jan 23, 2025 08:11 PM IST
Karla Sofía Gascón became the first openly transgender actor to be nominated in the Best Actress category at the Oscars for her performance in Emilia Pérez.
Karla Sofía Gascón has become the first openly transgender actor to be nominated for the Oscars. The Spanish star recognised for her performance as the titular character in Jacques Audiard’s musical crime film Emilia Pérez has bagged a nomination in the Best Actress category. (Also Read: Oscars 2025 full list of nominations: Anuja bags historic nod for India, The Brutalist and Emilia Perez dominate)
Who is Karla Sofía Gascón?
Karla, born on March 31, 1972, decided she wanted to be an actor when she was in her teens. She earned an acting degree from the ECAM and worked for BBC in London on language-learning children’s shows. After appearing in Spanish daily shows in the early 2000s, she moved to Mexico in 2009 to work in telenovelas. After completing her gender transition in 2018, Karla released a book under her birth name, Karsia, while announcing her new name. She is married to Marisa Gutiérrez, and they have a daughter born in 2011.
Making history
2024 skyrocketed her to fame worldwide when she played Emilia, a feared drug cartel lord who seeks the help of Zoe Saldaña’s Rita, a lawyer, to fake her death and undergo gender-affirming surgery. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won her the Best Actress prize, shared jointly with her co-stars Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz and Zoe. This made her the first openly transgender actor to win at Cannes too. She also became the Chevalière of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres later in 2024 and is the first transgender woman nominated for the Golden Globes for acting.
Oscars’ history with transgender people
Three openly transgender people in non-acting categories have been nominated for the Oscars – composer Angela Morley, musician Anohni and documentarian Yance Ford. Actor Elliot Page was nominated for Juno in 2007 but he came out as transgender in 2020. Cisgender actors like Jared Leto, Hilary Swank and Eddie Redmayne have also been awarded for playing transgender people in Dallas Buyers Club, Boys Don’t Cry and The Danish Girl.
Other female actors nominated with Karla in the Best Actress category are Cynthia Erivo for Wicked, Mikey Madison for Anora, Demi Moore for The Substance and Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here.
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