The first openly transgender actress to get an Academy Award nomination is Karla Sofía Gascón. The Spanish actress is well-known for her portrayal as the title character in “Emilia Pérez,” a musical crime film directed by Jacques Audiard.
Throughout the Netflix movie, Emilia (Gascón), a notorious drug kingpin, enlists the aid of Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a lawyer, to stage her death and get gender-affirming surgery.
Gascón “electrifies” in her performance, according to Variety’s top film reviewer Peter Debruge, who lauded the Spanish-language picture in his review.
This is not Gascón’s first historic nomination this awards season; she was the first transgender woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe for film acting and the first transgender.
Woman to win the Cannes Film Festival’s best actress prize, a distinction she shared with co-stars Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz.
There have only ever been three openly transgender individuals nominated for an Oscar in any category: Yance Ford, musician Anohni, and composer Angela Morley.