Selena Gomez Defends Herself After Eugenio Derbez Criticizes Her ‘Emilia Pérez’ Performance
Selena Gomez is clapping back at Eugenio Derbez after he criticized her performance in Emilia Pérez.
The Radical actor-producer made an appearance on an upcoming episode of the Hablando de Cine podcast, where he expressed his disapproval of Gomez’s Spanish in the film, given that she’s not fluent in the language. The actress plays Jessi del Monte in director Jacques Audiard’s musical crime thriller.
“Selena is indefensible,” Derbez said of her performance. “I was there [watching the movie] with people, and every time a scene came [with her in it], we looked at each other to say, ‘Wow, what is this?’”
Host Gaby Meza recognized that while Gomez is a “very talented actress,” “very good singer” and has an Emmy nomination for her role in Only Murders in the Building, “Spanish is neither her primary nor secondary language nor fifth. And that’s why I feel she doesn’t know what she is saying, and if she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she can’t give her acting any nuance. … And that is why her performance is not only unconvincing but uncomfortable.”
Derbez was in complete agreement with Meza’s perspective, adding, “I’m glad you’re saying that because I was saying, ‘I can’t believe no one is talking about it?’”
The CODA star said he doesn’t understand why no one else has yet to question Gomez’s performance in Emilia Pérez and has instead given her awards for her role. (Gomez was awarded the Cannes Film Festival’s best actress prize, alongside her co-stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz and Zoe Saldaña, and they are also at the center of considerable Oscar buzz.)
However, Derbez believes it may be because the audience doesn’t realize the acting is dull since they don’t speak the language and are just reading subtitles instead. “I feel like what happens is they don’t speak Spanish,” he said. “If you watch a Russian film or a German film that is subtitled in Spanish and you see someone [speaking in the original language], you say, ‘Oh, look. OK. How interesting.’”
The Overboard actor added that he also realized at a post-screening Q&A with the film’s director that Audiard is French and doesn’t speak Spanish or English, which he also questioned since the actors in Emilia Pérez speak Spanish and English.
“I feel like he did a very interesting experiment,” Derbez said. “I liked the film apart from Selena’s [scenes] that jump at you because it has manageable things. But I was saying, ‘How strange because if 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 wanted to make a film in Russian without knowing the culture or Russian and speaking in French.”
After a clip of the interview was shared on TikTok, which caught Gomez’s attention, she commented on the video, “I understand where you are coming from..I’m sorry I did the best I could with the time I was given. Doesn’t take away from how much work and heart I put into this movie.”
She later added, “Also do not ever say my fans are the problem standing up, as you say, for me.”
Emilia Pérez follows a cartel leader Emilia (Gascón) who enlists Rita (Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer, to help fake her death so that she can transition into a woman and finally live authentically as her true self.
