Following her Best Supporting Actress win at the 2025 Oscars, Zoe Saldaña opened up about some of the controversy and backlash surrounding Emilia Pérez.

While it was nominated for 13 Oscars in total, Emilia Pérez only took home two Academy Awards on Sunday night: Best Supporting Actress (Saldaña) and Best Original Song (“El Mal” by Clément Ducol, Camille, and Jacques Audiard).

Emilia Pérez has proven to be a controversial film. While actress Karla Sofía Gascón’s recent tweets pretty much took the movie out of the running for Best Picture, there’s also been much talk about how the film addresses transgender representation and Mexican culture (the director, Audiard, is a French filmmaker who previously indicated he didn’t study Mexcian culture in much depth before making the movie).

What did Zoe Saldaña say about Emilia Perez after winning the Oscar?

Per Entertainment Weekly, a reporter from a Mexican outlet described Emilia Pérez as “really hurtful for us Mexicans” to Saldaña shortly after she won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award.

Saldaña responded, “First of all, I’m very, very sorry that you and so many Mexicans felt offended. That was never our intention. We spoke from a place of love. But I don’t share your opinion. For me, the heart of this movie was not Mexico.

“We weren’t making a film about a country; we were making a film about four women. They could have been Russian, they could have been Dominican, they could have been Black, from Detroit, they could have been from Israel, they could have been from Gaza. These women are all very universal women, trying to survive every day, trying to survive systemic oppression… So I will stand by that.”

Saldaña also said she is willing to “sit down with all of my Mexican brothers and sisters, with love and respect, and have a conversation about how Emilia could’ve been done better.”