The best supporting actress race has been a heated competition in the run-up to the 2025 awards season, but this evening at the Golden Globes, Emilia Pérez’s Zoe Saldaña demonstrated the film’s momentum when she accepted her trophy. For the occasion, the star wore a sequin Saint Laurent dress. (The house’s production company, Saint Laurent Productions, also co-produced the Spanish-language movie-musical).
While holding her award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture, Saldaña broke down in tears as she thanked her cast, crew, and fellow nominees “I know that [the Golden Globes] is a competition,” she said, “but all that I have witnessed is just us showing up for each other and celebrating each other, and it’s just so beautiful.” This is Saldaña’s first win and nomination.
Read her speech below:
“Oh my God. I know I don’t have much time, and I have dyslexia, so I tend to forget when I’m really anxious, and I’m filled with adrenaline, but my heart is full of gratitude. Thank you so much to the Golden Globes for celebrating our film and honoring the women of Emilia Pérez. Thank you so much.
This is a first time for me, and I’m just so blessed that I’m sharing this moment with Selena [Gomez] and Karla [Sofía Gascón] and Jacques [Audiard] and all of my fellow nominees. I’m in awe of you, your strength, your complexity, your undeniable talent. I know that it is a competition, but all that I have witnessed is just us showing up for each other and celebrating each other, and it’s just so beautiful.
So Selena [Gomez], Ariana [Grande], Margaret [Qualley], Felicity [Jones], Isabella [Rossellini]—I had lunch one time in your house and it was like, I thought I had made it already, but—you’re magic. You’re all magic, and I experienced this kind of magic on the set of Emilia Pérez and it’s thanks to you, thank you, merci beaucoup, Jacques Audiard. Thank you so much for trusting me to play Rita. You are just a character that I admire so much. You created rich and complex characters, and you’re so French and so chic and confident and kind! I love it!
My Emilia Pérez cast and crew…thank you so much…And Karla, no one other than you could have played Emilia Pérez. No one. Eres única. Eres única…My family, my mom is here, my sisters, my husband, and my sons. I love you, I love you. You guys are everything. Thank you!”
In 2024, Saldaña was one of ELLE’s Women in Hollywood honorees. She spoke in her interview about how her entire career in the industry amazes her.
“I’m a girl from Queens,” she said. “I really love being from Jackson Heights, but it’s such a world in its own. The day that Steven Spielberg gave me my first opportunity or James Cameron or J.J. Abrams or James Gunn, and then Jacques Audiard, my heart skipped a beat. Those are those moments where through that struggle that I have with loving myself, I’m repurposed. I’m compelled to see myself as others are seeing me, and the sacrifices that I’m putting in every day are being rewarded. It’s a shot of oxygen into my lungs, and it reshapes me and raises me; it reconnects me to my higher self.”
She also candidly discussed the challenges that lie ahead for women in entertainment and how Emilia Pérez is a representation of the progress made so far.
“We condition ourselves to believe that we always have to fight and we always have to push and I think that’s very important,” she began. “Something that’s also very important is to pause and look back and appreciate the progress that has been made. We will never be happy with the pace of how change happens for the better, but it has been happening since the beginning of cinema. We are completely different today from where we were 20 years ago and then 40 years ago and 60 years ago. There has been an evolution.
“I feel like a film like Emilia Pérez is a testament to that. For me to ignore it and only talk about the battle that we always have to have is to me not being present and appreciating the fact that Jacques Audiard could have told any story, and yet this was the one that captivated his heart. And he not only wanted to highlight Emilia Pérez, but also wanted to give Rita [Zoe] and Jessi [Selena] and Epifanía [Adriana] their light as well. So he didn’t only have time for one woman in his story, he had time for four.”
