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Eugenio Derbez calls out Selena Gomez’s Spanish in ‘Emilia Pérez’, sparking heated debate
Selena Gomez claps back at Eugenio Derbez’s ‘un-categorised’ criticism on actress’s performance in Emilia Pérez. The singer is now responding to his comments.
During an upcoming Hablando de Cine podcast, the Radical actor-producer voiced his disapproval of Gomez’s use of Spanish in the movie, citing her lack of fluency in the language. In the musical crime thriller directed by Jacques Audiard, the actress portrays Jessi del Monte.
“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?’”
According to the CODA star, he finds it incomprehensible that Gomez has received accolades for her act in Emilia Pérez while no one else has questioned it yet. Along with her co-stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz, and Zoe Saldaña, Gomez received the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actress award. They are also the subject of a lot of Oscar talk.
However, Derbez thinks it might be because the audience is only reading the subtitles and doesn’t speak the language, so they are unaware of how boring the performance is.
“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 actor from Overboard went on to say that during a post-screening Q&A with the film’s director, he also discovered that Audiard is French and does not understand Spanish or English. He further questioned this, given that Emilia Pérez’s actors know 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.”
