When Emilia Pérez premiered in Mexico last month, it was fighting an uphill battle. For months before, as clips of the movie made their way through social media, Mexican audiences were turned off by the depiction of their country. Some of the criticism was fodder for memes and jokes, like Selena Gomez speaking in Spanish with a heavy American accent. But as more details came out about the movie, the debates became more serious, mostly about one of the movie’s storylines, which centers on cartel violence causing the disappearance of thousands. It stung for Mexican audiences, especially at the hands of a French director, Jacques Audiard, and a cast that only included one Mexican actress, Adriana Paz.
Paz has been praised for her role in Emilia Peréz, where she plays a domestic abuse survivor who finds refuge in the titular Peréz. But as the film’s Mexico premiere grew closer, Paz took on a different role becoming the de facto ambassador to her home country. Multiple Mexican press outlets published interviews with Paz days before the film’s release where she was forced to defend Emilia Pérez on her own.
To Excelsior, Adriana Paz welcomed the controversies, saying “If they’re talking and the situation is so heated, it’s because there’s something interesting there, it’s because there’s things that are making an impression.” She also had to speak up for her own castmates who were accused of not letting Paz sit with them during the Golden Globes or walk the red carpet.
To Aristegui Noticias, she encouraged people to go see the movie and form their own opinions – “I hope lots of people can watch it so it doesn’t get mixed up and we can look at the other messages from Emilia and no come from a place contaminated by other comments that have been distorted.”
What was missing from these interviews was not Paz’s courage or acknowledgement of Mexican audiences, but the people who made this movie with her, particularly her own director. Most notably, about a week before the premiere, Audiard and Paz were scheduled to attend a screening and a Q&A with students at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM for its Spanish acronym). Paz was there but at the last minute Audiard canceled, citing “logistic issues.”
According to El Pais’ coverage of the event, the students felt slighted, calling him a “coward” and praising Paz for showing up. One student asked if Adriana Paz felt Mexican audiences were expecting too much from the movie or if they just didn’t understand the director’s message. But the director was not there to defend his message, leaving it to Paz to ease the tension and urge for a more open dialogue about the movie.
Emilia Perez is not a documentary, as Paz and other cast members have said, but even fiction should resonate, particularly with the audiences it aims to depict. Paz knows the film and her character but it’s impossible for her to accurately speak on the “director’s message.” Instead, she could only defend Audiard’s character and assure audiences that the movie wasn’t coming “from a place of superiority” and that he’s a “sensible, intelligent, and loving person.”
The main interview Audiard gave was with Zima Entertainment, the film’s distributor in Mexico. In that interview, he talks about how he spent four years of his life making this movie, and that he doesn’t quite understand why some Mexican viewers might feel offended. “The initial idea was to make an opera and in operas, things are not very realistic. Sometimes they’re a bit exaggerated,” he said.
Paz’s work in the movie has not been overshadowed by the negative press. Last year, she won the Best Actress award at Cannes along with her co-stars, Karla Sofia Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez. She recently announced she is working on a new movie with Diego Luna. But in having to navigate between speaking on the artistry of her role and the cultural sensitivity around some of the film’s storylines, the stakes for her professional life became much higher.
While Audiard crafted a story about Mexico from the safety of his artistic vision, Paz has been left alone to bridge the gap between that vision and her country’s reality. This imbalance changed her position from collaborator to cultural shield, expecting to validate the entire production. For Paz, this has meant walking an impossible tightrope between defending her work and respecting her audience’s legitimate concerns – a position Adriana Paz should have never been placed in.
