Casting Director Carla Hool Says ‘Emilia Pérez’ Leads Were Originally Supposed to Be Much Younger

Emilia Pérez casting director Carla Hool talks to The Contending about aging up the cast of Jacques Audiard’s musical.

Can you imagine a 30-year-old Manitas in Emilia Pérez?

Casting director Carla Hool says one of the challenges of casting Jacques Audiard’s musical was making adjustments, like ages.

“Initially, these characters were way younger,” says Hool. “Manitas (Karla Sofia Gascón) was 30, Rita (Zoe Saldaña) was 25, and Jessi (Selena Gomez) was 19. As we moved on in casting, Jacques decided that the older versions were better.”

But one thing was for sure: Hool and her team needed good actors who spoke Spanish and could sing.

“We didn’t know there was going to be dancing at the time, so it was amazing for Zoe [Saldaña] since she has that dance background. It was a big search.”

Casting Emilia Pérez

Manitas, or Emilia Perez, is basically two roles. As a Mexican cartel leader, they (Karla Sofia Gascón) ask a jaded lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to help them disappear as they transition to a woman.

“For the Emilia character, she was a tough one. We saw actors all over Latin America, and I knew Karla Sofia’s work, so I immediately already had her on my list of actors to look for. She did a great job. She killed it.”

Hool says that despite casting for a musical that features a blunt, almost comical song about gender-transition, she didn’t receive any pushback from actors.

“Everyone wanted to work with Jacques. The minute word was out there that it was Jacques Audiard directing, I had agents calling. Zoe auditioned, and she usually doesn’t audition at this point. I had many other actresses audition as well, who normally wouldn’t. Because it was Jacques, they all wanted to be part of the film. For some of them, the singing was challenging, and the actors didn’t think they were capable of it.”

Saldaña auditioned on Zoom, and Selena Gomez auditioned in person in LA with “Bienvenida” — the song in the bedroom scene.

“She really went for it and got into the character. It was like a little living room in a hotel where we did the auditions. She really took over that whole space and went for it. Jacques loved her from the beginning.”

For all the roles, even the smaller ones, they looked everywhere. Originally, the film was going to be shot in Mexico City, but when they moved the movie to a studio in Paris, they had to improvise.

“Adriana Paz is an amazing Mexican actress, and Jacques really, really liked her and tried to figure out where he wanted her in the film. All the smaller roles were cast locally by a French casting director.”

Authenticity is Key

One of the most important decisions Hool helped make was casting according to origin.

“These characters were originally native Mexican, and so while Selena was perfect for the Jessi role, I said, ‘You need to change the story and not make her Mexican because she wasn’t raised in Mexico.’ He changed it and added English as well to make it known that she’s Mexican American, so her Spanish is broken and she speaks English. With Zoe, it was the same thing. She’s Dominican, so you can’t have her play a Mexican, so he adapted the story as well. Authenticity is one of the things that’s most important in casting. Those were the conversations we were having.”

As for aging the characters in the film, Hool says that the story ended up being better for it.

“Jacques realized at some point that it works better for them to be older. That’s one of the beauties you see in casting. I see how they change dialogue and characters because you see them see it come to life. They listen to the script, the story, and the characters.”

Emilia Pérez is streaming on Netflix.