Oscars 2025: Zoe Saldaña wins ‘Best Supporting Actress’
Zoe Saldaña has won the Oscar for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ at the 97th Academy Awards for her performance in Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez, beating fellow nominees Ariana Grande for Wicked, Monica Barbaro for A Complete Unknown, Isabella Rossellini for Conclave, and Felicity Jones for The Brutalist.
“Mommy! I am floored by this honour,” she said when she collected the award, searching for her mother in the crowd. “Thank you to the Academy for recognising the quiet heroism and amazing power of women.”
She concluded her speech by highlighting her historic win. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams, dignity, and hardworking hands,” she said after thanking her fellow cast members. “I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”
Saldaña was a frontrunner for the award, having already won the Bafta, Screen Actors Guild, and Golden Globe awards in the same category. It’s the culmination of an unlikely trajectory for the actor, who has spent most of the past decade and a half starring in three of Hollywood’s biggest franchises, Avatar, Star Trek, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
In Emilia Pérez, Saldaña plays a lawyer who is enlisted to help a drug cartel leader, played by ‘Best Actress’ nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, disappear and undergo gender-affirming surgery to transition into a woman.
The film has been a favourite on the awards circuit, beginning with its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year, where it earned the Jury Prize and ‘Best Ensemble’ for its female leads. However, it has also been plagued with controversy from the start.
It was criticised for a lack of authenticity in its portrayal of Mexico, given that the director is French, the movie was filmed in Paris, and none of the major cast members are Mexican. More controversy arose in January when old Tweets were unearthed in which Gascón voiced racist and Islamophobic views.
Before the latter scandal broke, Emilia Pérez earned 13 Oscar nominations, more than any other film this year, including ‘Best Actress’, ‘Best Foreign Film’, and ‘Best Picture’.
In Far Out’s review of the film, Emily Ruuskanen wrote: “Emilia Pérez is a film so eager to be a million things that it cannot commit to one thing, leaving you unsure whether you should be laughing with it or at it, swinging so far that the hits and misses feel even more disappointing, ultimately feeling confused and over-saturated. It presents itself as a story that explores queer identity and female empowerment but ultimately feels hollow and flat, creating a tonal disconnect in its imitation of a melodrama, but without any substance to pack any punch.”
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.