Selena Gomez shared her sweet reaction to learning she won the Best Actress Award at Cannes Film Festival.
“I’m so excited!” she said into her phone on Saturday, May 25. Gomez, 31, received a call from Zoe Saldaña, who informed her that the women of Emilia Pérez were all awarded the Best Actress honor together. Gomez and Saldaña, 45, share the award with Karla Sofia Gascón and Adriana Paz.
The “Single Soon” singer learned the news while in New York City. She was in Central Park having a picnic with pals when she got the call. Gascón was still in France to accept the honor at the closing ceremony, where Emilia Pérez also won the coveted Jury Prize.
“Thank you SO much [Cannes Film Festival] and the whole board,” Gomez wrote via Instagram Story on Saturday.
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Barbie director Greta Gerwig served as the Cannes 2024 jury president and explained that the voters couldn’t single out one star from Emilia Pérez, a musical about a drug lord (Gascón) who seeks out a lawyer (Saldaña) to help get gender confirmation surgery.
“It was such a film that felt like it belonged to … this interplay between these sisters — who are so different, but they are playing with each other the whole time,” Gerwig said when asked about giving Best Actress to all four women. “It almost felt like everyone was shining and they were all a unit. To separate them felt like it undermined the magic of what they created together.”
Gerwig added that the Cannes jury “really wanted to honor” how they worked to gather as a group. “I think that each of them is a standout, but together they’re transcendent.”
Actress Lily Gladstone, who also served as a jury member, echoed the idea when they presented the award. “We decided that how can you award a harmony by singling out individual notes? They’re stronger when they resound together, so we decided this year to award Best Actresses,” the Flowers of the Killer Moon said said during the closing ceremony.
Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard, premiered at the French film festival one week prior, and it received a nine-minute standing ovation that left Gomez and her costars in tears.
“Thank you Cannes!” the Only Murders in the Building star wrote via Instagram on May 18. “I’m so honored to be a small part of something so special in Emilia Pérez — Jacques, thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in me. @zoesaldana @karsiagascon @edgarramirez25 and every single person apart of this film absolutely blew me away. Love you guys 
.”
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The musical also gave Gomez the opportunity to act in Spanish, which was a big change for her. “I’m going to diminish myself a little bit here. This has nothing to do with the film, I am honored to be a part of it. I’m not as happy with what I feel like I could’ve done in Spanish,” she admitted to AP in an interview published on May 22. “But overall, I hope that it doesn’t hinder my performance and I’m really grateful for the opportunity. Perhaps I could’ve had more time with it, but I was full-throttle and I wanted to be a part of this so badly. It was a challenge for me, for sure.”
Saldaña, whose first language is Spanish, gushed over her costar’s efforts. “She worked so hard,” Saldaña said of Gomez. “You did such a marvelous job, and she knew her lines. And the language never got in between the emotion that she was sharing as Jessie so we were all so impressed.”
