Searching for the ideal performers to inhabit each of the film’s prominent roles — which included Emilia’s lover Epifanía and Jessi’s beau Gustavo — proved to be a painstaking process, says Audiard: “It took me a long time to cast this movie because I couldn’t find the right actors.” In early drafts of the script, Emilia and Rita were women in their twenties and early thirties, but as the filmmaker met with actors Gascón and Saldaña, he chose to revisit the characters’ ages. “I realized that they are women with a past,” he says. “Meeting the real actresses revealed to me what my mistake was.”

For the part of Jessi, Audiard wanted an actor who possessed both deep vulnerability and striking intensity — and he knew Gomez was the only choice within 10 minutes of first meeting her. “There’s a fragility in her that truly overwhelms and touches me deeply,” he says of the star. “She’s somebody who’s so charming to work with; she is really too humble.” The central trio poured themselves into their roles, though the director noticed that each had her own unique approach. “I worked in [one] way with Karla, in a different way with Zoe, and yet another with Selena,” Audiard says. “They were really different from each other, [but] they were [all] tireless.” 

The musical crime drama required much from its multifaceted ensemble, who were often called upon to communicate their characters’ innermost emotions through song and movement. Gascón devoted two years to playing Emilia, exploring her journey from a drug lord yearning to transition, to the founder of a nonprofit, La Lucecita, which searches for the remains of the country’s disappeared citizens, many of whom are victims of cartel violence. Gascón displays immense range as she takes on both sides of Emilia: the intimidating darkness within her and the electrifying power she harnesses finally living as her true self. “We found these new dimensions for this character,” says Gascón. “It was difficult emotionally for me to remove this [character from] my life. I dove into the deep end of this abyss.”

For Saldaña, making Emilia Pérez felt like a dream come true. “By the time Emilia Pérez came knocking on my door, I was at that crossroads,” says Saldaña, who got her start in theater and as a classically trained dancer. “[I was asking myself,] Do I try to reconnect with the feeling that I used to have when I got to this town? There were moments [with this role] in which I would leave the set or studio and would go, I don’t know what I left out there; all I know is that I gave it my all.”

Gomez found that playing Jessi — a woman of intense passions looking for her own identity — was therapeutic: “There was the feeling overall of wanting to be authentic to who you are. I want that challenge because as an actor, I believe I’ve barely scratched the surface. I don’t mean that in a conceited way. I just know that I surprise myself when I work with great filmmakers.”

When Emilia Pérez premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Gascón, Saldaña, and Gomez, alongside Adriana Paz (Rudo y Cursi), who co-stars as Epifanía, were recognized as an ensemble with the Best Actress Award. Paz says there was a shared energy and respect among the members of the team that helped them overcome language barriers: “When you love what you’re doing and the other people are in the same mood, we can all connect — and that’s what I felt in Emilia.” Saldaña agrees. “I hope that we gain understanding that women have different versions of achieving their freedom, and that that needs to be honored and celebrated,” she says. 

According to Audiard, working with the close-knit ensemble was a gift: “Each morning when I showed up on set, my reaction was, Wow, now I get to work for eight full hours with these incredible performers.”

For makeup department heads Julia Floch-Carbonel (Wild Diamond) and Simon Livet (The Empire), along with hairstyling team Jane Brizard, Emmanuel Janvier, and Romain Marietti, the greatest challenge was developing two distinct looks for Emilia: one before her transition and one after. “We had to imagine a big contrast between Emilia’s past and present, from the coldhearted cartel leader to the reformed and remorseful Emilia,” says Floch-Carbonel. “Jean-Christophe Spadaccini, our special effects makeup artist, created perfect prosthetics — nose, cheeks, jaws, old acne [scars], etc. — to make Karla’s face look as different as possible from [when she was living as drug lord Manitas].” 

Although the team undertook extensive research as they developed Gascón’s makeup, they made a point to consult her on every decision about Emilia’s look. “The most important thing was Karla’s testimonial and advice about the character,” notes Livet. Adds Spadaccini (At Eternity’s Gate): “Karla was very helpful during this process and wanted to look as wild as possible in contrast to her glamorous look in the second part of the film. We did many tests to perfect and refine the look.”

Indeed, with striking tattoos and metal teeth, the drug kingpin introduced at the beginning of the film is a far cry from the more refined Emilia. Yet Spadaccini transformed Gascón so thoroughly, she could be shot in extreme close-up without any need for touch-ups using visual effects in postproduction; the silicone prosthetic nose he applied blended seamlessly with the actor’s own features. “The character of Manitas is larger-than-life, but the makeup had to remain realistic and believable,” he says. “The creative vision and hard work of the makeup team and, above all, the dedication of Karla Sofía Gascón, made this possible.”

Artistic director and costume designer Virginie Montel, who first began collaborating with Audiard two decades ago on 2001’s Read My Lips, worked with the entire production team to craft the film’s distinct look and tone. French fashion house Saint Laurent and its creative director Anthony Vaccarello were partners to the production and collaborated with Montel on select costumes, in particular on some of the key looks for Rita, Jessi, and Gustavo, played by Edgar Ramírez (Florida Man). “I passed on references, mood boards, and chosen directions to Saint Laurent,” says Montel. “We shared our references from a wide range of sources, from painting to film to photography, to come up with a mood board for each character. Together, we found inspiration in the Saint Laurent archives and picked out pieces that worked for what we wanted.”

A blouse Gomez wears when Jessi playfully flashes Gustavo was fabricated specifically for the film, as were many of Rita’s costumes, which needed to fit into a certain color palette. The garments themselves, however, hewed closely to the design house’s existing aesthetic. “For Rita, the collection was very close to what we imagined for her character,” Montel says. 

To dress Rita and Emilia for the important fundraising sequence, during which the frustrated Rita leaps onto banquet tables and vehemently expresses her disgust at the guests’ hypocrisy in song, Montel used costume to suggest the characters’ outsider status. “It was important to understand the integrity of these two women in the face of a room full of corrupt rich people,” says the artistic director. “They had to be chic representatives of their nonprofit organization, La Lucecita. It was important to feel the contrast between them and the audience. They both wore Lucecita T-shirts, [but] Rita’s red velvet suit stood out from the start. This was her big moment. She had to be the star of the show, and it worked so well with Damien Jalet’s choreography for the scene, which had an English punk edge.” 

Exhilarating and emotive, the choreography of Emilia Pérez is a feat of striking precision and fluidity. Choreographer and dancer Damien Jalet — who has previously collaborated with filmmakers and artists like Luca Guadagnino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Madonna — knew from the moment he met Audiard in 2021 that they would share a true collaboration. “We had many conversations, so we were on the same page,” he recalls. “As Jacques had never worked with a choreographer before, I immediately let him know that I might be all over him during the shoot, to create something with the actors’ body language that would match their performances.” 

Audiard embraced the choreographer’s intuitions. “As for the dance, I knew I wanted it, but it’s a vocabulary I don’t master at all. When we started working together with Damien, the challenge for him was to understand what I was looking for, what I liked, and to translate it choreographically,” explains the filmmaker. “He was also [responsible for] some choreographed moments, even [when] I wasn’t expecting any dancing at [those points] in the film.”

Working with the troupe of performers on their intricate movements, Jalet tailored his approach to each actor based on their role in the narrative, which in turn informed the choreography for each character. “With Emilia Pérez, the music, the dialogue, and the choreography work together to tell the story. The body language doesn’t imitate the dialogue, doesn’t try to illustrate it literally, so I had to find an alternate language that served a real purpose, that gave the scenes a sense of urgency and intensity,” he says. 

For the commanding “El Mal” sequence, which takes place at the gala benefit dinner for La Lucecita, Jalet capitalized on Saldaña’s background as a dancer to create something that matched the ferocity of the scene. “I said to Jacques that I could develop this scene as an actual solo for Zoe, knowing that she would be able to combine, as very few actors can, choreographic virtuosity, acting, and singing,” says Jalet. “This was an incredible moment of the shoot — the extras who were not dancers found out on the day what they were supposed to do. They didn’t do any rehearsal to prep, which brings, I think, a genuine tension to the scene.” 

Emilia Pérez is a sharp and dynamic study in contrasts — of light and dark, of grittiness and opulence. “There’s always a good chance for the film to grow static on a soundstage; we always kept in mind that we needed dynamism, either in the foreground or using depth of field,” says director Audiard, who partnered with cinematographer Paul Guilhaume (Paris, 13th District) to envision the film during the four years of preparation. “To me, the film is almost like a chimera, a mix of musical and drama elements,” explains Guilhaume. “The visual language borrows from classic noir films to more modern films like Uncut Gems, but also from pop culture references and music videos.” Adds artistic director Montel: “I think of it as a kaleidoscope of bold images. For Jacques, it was always extremely important that we could stop on the image and the image could live on its own.” 

Early on in the filmmaking process, Audiard made the bold decision that the first act would take place almost exclusively at night, meaning Guilhaume had to determine how to properly light the actors and the environments amid the darkness. “In a way, we wanted to keep the timeless imagery of an opera stage, with the characters standing in dark environments, but including in it modern elements of light, using L.E.D., projections, lasers, and very contemporary light fixtures,” the cinematographer says. “Jacques wanted to make a film for today’s world, with cinematography that would match that idea.” 

From the opening sequence to the film’s explosive last act, Emilia Pérez is a propulsive ride, and it fell to editor Juliette Welfling to finely calibrate its momentum. “I tried to cut the whole film like a very free musical score, constantly thinking about rhythm and style — that’s what guided my work,” explains Welfling. “[It’s] sometimes fast, interrupted by abrupt breaks, sometimes stretching in softer moments, always trying to be in sync with the truth of the characters.” 

An Academy Award nominee for her work on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Welfling cites one moment in particular in the project as a crucial turning point, both narratively and in determining how she approached cutting the film. It comes not quite midway through the story, when Rita unexpectedly encounters Emilia at a London dinner party four years after they’ve initially parted. 

“At the moment of revelation, the lights go out, and we are suddenly immersed into the intimacy of Emilia and Rita,” Welfling says. “At this moment, the musical takes on its full power, allowing us to escape from realism. The editing of the first part of the scene is focused on efficiency, but for the sung part, emotion alone guided the cut. We stay in close-up, shot-reverse-shot of the two women, with minimal cutting in the editing. They are like the only two people in the world; that’s what we want the audience to feel. It’s a very emotional moment. After this scene, everything will be different.” 

Welfling has edited each of Audiard’s films, dating to his first feature, See How They Fall. “We have a very close relationship based on mutual trust,” she says “We talk a lot. We allow ourselves to try anything we have in mind, even very bad ideas. They might eventually lead to something good. It’s this freedom that gradually helps us find the film.”

Emilia Pérez sees its characters traverse the globe on their quests for self-discovery, traveling from Mexico City to Tel Aviv, Bangkok, Switzerland, London, and back again. While some sequences were filmed on location in Mexico, the majority of Audiard’s film was shot on soundstages outside of Paris, leaving production designer Emmanuelle Duplay (Anatomy of a Fall) and her team to recreate the vibrant and detailed locations of Emilia’s world from scratch. “When you shoot on a soundstage, however clichéd this sounds, it’s a blank page and you must create everything — the lighting, the scale, the colors, the liveness,” explains Audiard. “You must think about what will be in the foreground and how you understand the depth of field.” 

Duplay says visiting Mexico prior to shooting was critical: “The location scout in Mexico during preproduction was crucial because once we knew exactly what we wanted to show from the city, it was much easier to reinterpret it and conceive it onstage.” Whether it was Emilia’s fortress-like estate filled with sharp angles, the gritty karaoke bar where Jessi and Gustavo rendezvous, or Epifanía’s cozy apartment dotted with mementos and photographs, each set exhibited a lived-in atmosphere that was created meticulously by the production design team. “When I got on set, I thought I was in Mexico,” remembers Paz. “It not only looked like Mexico, but it felt like Mexico.”

Complex visual effects completed the illusion, with various sets extended and backgrounds added in digitally during postproduction. “The special effects on the exteriors adds ‘reality’ to certain scenes, particularly for the street,” Duplay explains. “For the creation of the street market in the opening scene, we were looking for a high degree of realism.”

In addition to composing Emilia Pérez’s original songs — from showstopping rock number “El Mal” to the emotionally spiky karaoke ballad “Mi Camino” — musicians Clément Ducol and Camille shaped the film’s pulsing score. The duo, who were recognized with the Toronto International Film Festival Tribute Variety Artisan Award, sought to create something that would complement the narrative songs. “We had a strong musical basis with the songs, and it wasn’t about adding any comment,” says Ducol. “We came up with vocal material for the score, performed by me and Camille, and choruses that really stood out from the songs. From the dialogue to the songs to those soundscapes, voices serve as the film’s through line.” 

Balancing Emilia Pérez’s various and complex auditory elements was another kind of undertaking. Sound supervisor Cyril Holtz, a winner of the César Award for Best Sound for his work on Audiard’s English-language Western The Sisters Brothers, looked to ensure the components accompanied each other in a “fluid and natural” way. “One of the primary goals of the film was to create a completely organic sonic and musical fabric in which the boundaries between dialogues, songs, music, and sounds are seamless,” Holtz says. “We sought to evoke as many emotions and sensations as possible for the viewer without it being too apparent. We needed to ensure that everything coexisted — for example, that a choreographed song in a bustling market did not boil down to just a voice and music, but rather incorporated the crowd, noises, market energy, and the song itself, with the rhythm of one supporting the other.”

Audiard’s dedication and devotion to honoring the characters and vision of Emilia Pérez galvanized those on the journey with him to create an astonishingly original film. Sharing it with audiences has been a bonus on top of the rewarding creative process. “We’re not taking any of this for granted. It’s just we’re still so proud of this movie,” says Gomez. Gascón notes that the experience has been profoundly personal for her: “As an actress, I feel like it’s the happiest moment of my life.” 

For Audiard, his 10th feature as a director came at exactly the right moment — all of his past films, he says, led up to this point. “It is a movie that I wouldn’t have been able to make 10 years ago. I wouldn’t even have come up with something like that,” says the filmmaker. “I think each film for me is an answer to a question. The questions that come up [with Emilia Pérez] are, How many lives do I have a right to? And if I do have a right to a second life, what would that be like?”