Zoe Saldaña has spoken out about a series of offensive tweets from her Emilia Pérez co-star Karla Sofía Gascón, saying they make her “really sad”.

• READ MORE: ‘Emilia Pérez’ review: Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez let loose in flawed musical melodrama

Earlier this week, Gascón apologised after it emerged that she had posted a series of tweets showing controversial opinions on Muslims, the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the Oscars. In one 2020 post, she posted a picture of a Muslim family with a woman in a burka, describing the clothing tradition as “deeply disgusting”.

In another, shared a few days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer, she wrote “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler”. In 2021, she also wrote about the Oscars: “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala”.

“I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt,” Gascón said this week in a statement to Variety. “As someone in a marginalised community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness”.

Gascón, who has now deleted her X account, became the first transgender woman to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination earlier this month for her role as the title character in Jacques Audiard’s tale about a Mexican lawyer (Saldaña) who is hired to help a cartel drug lord (Gascón) with her transition.

Now, Saldaña, who was herself nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the Netflix film, has spoken for the first time about the scandal during a Q&A in London. “I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” she said.

“It makes me really sad because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.”

“I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender equity,” she added. “And it just saddens me.”

“It saddens me that we are having to face this setback right now. But I’m happy that you’re all here and that you’re all still showing up for Emilia because the message that this film has is so powerful and the change that it can bring forward to communities that are marginalized day in and day out is important.

“And all that I can attest is that all of us that came together to tell this story, we came together for love and for respect and curiosity, and we will continue to spread that message. That’s all we can say right now. Thank you.”

Gascón’s statement came a few days after Fernanda Torres, also nominated for Best Actress for her role in I’m Still Here, apologised for appearing in Blackface in a sketch show from 2008.

In a three-star review of Emilia Pérez, which received a total of 13 Oscar nominations, NME wrote: “Whilst its blend of influences make Emilia Perez unique, they also make it exhausting. The personal impact of Emilia’s transition is undercut by a ludicrous song with lyrics about vaginoplasty, any grittiness from the drug cartel thread gets smoothed over by the schmaltzy sentimentality that surrounds it and the flashes of real visual flair act are bogged down by the twisting, tiresome plot.”

“You’ve probably never seen a movie like Emilia Perez before – and whilst there is enough meat in the performances to make you somewhat glad you did, you might not want to again.”

The post Zoe Saldaña on ‘Emilia Pérez’ co-star Karla Sofía Gascón’s offensive tweets: “It makes me really sad” appeared first on NME.

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