Zoe Saldaña is further speaking out about the controversy surrounding costar Karla Sofía Gascón’s past offensive comments.
On Wednesday, Feb. 5, Variety published a preview of Emilia Pérez star Saldaña’s appearance on the outlet’s Awards Circuit podcast, during which she echoed comments she made during a Q&A in London on Jan. 31 and said the news made her feel “sad.”
“I’m sad. Time and time again, that’s the word because that is the sentiment that has been living in my chest since everything happened,” Saldaña, 46, told Variety. “I’m also disappointed. I can’t speak for other people’s actions. All I can attest to is my experience, and never in a million years did I ever believe that we would be here.”
The outlet noted that Saldaña did not respond directly when asked whether she had spoken with Gascón in the seven days since journalist Sarah Hagi first shared screenshots of now-deleted posts on X from Gascón’s past.
“I feel like I’ve spoken enough about it,” Saldaña said, adding that she is still processing the situation. “It’s not just something we have to figure out immediately.”
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Saldaña’s latest comments on the situation regarding Gascón, 52, came the same day as Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard condemned Gascón’s past comments as “inexcusable” in an interview with Deadline and said he has not spoken to her since the controversy.
“I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to,” Audiard said. “She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing. Why is she harming herself? … She’s talking about herself as a victim, which is surprising. It’s as if she thought that words don’t hurt.”
When asked about Gascón’s comment in a CNN en Español interview that aired Feb. 2, in which Gascón said she believed Saldaña and costar Selena Gomez “support me 200 percent,” Saldaña told Variety, “I do not support any negative rhetoric of racism and bigotry towards any group of people. That is what I want to stand for.”
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“I will always be a hopeful person,” Saldaña added. “I was not raised to have any negative judgment towards people of any group in any community. While being that person, I can still stand by a body of work that I can be proud of.”
Gascón, for her part, most recently wrote in a Tuesday, Feb. 4 Instagram post that she has “nothing to hide” and that she wants “the freedom to exist without fear, to create art without barriers and to move forward with my new life.”
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