Fernanda Torres and Karla Sofía Gascón made history on Thursday as the first pair of Best Actress Oscar nominees for non-English language performances in nearly 50 years. Torres stars in Sony Pictures Classics’ I’m Still Here from Brazil, while Gascón leads in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez from France. This marks the fourth time two actors have been nominated for non-English roles for different movies in the same year. They will compete against Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Mikey Madison (Anora), and Demi Moore (The Substance). Both films are cited for Best International Feature and Best Picture while Emilia Pérez became the most-nominated international movie with 13 mentions.
In the Walter Salles‘ political biopic, Torres portrays Portuguese-speaking human rights activist Eunice Paiva, who searches for her missing husband, politician Rubens Paiva, during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in 1971. Torres’ only precursor recognition was at the Golden Globes, where she surprised in Best Drama Actress. Despite missing at the Critics Choice, SAG, and BAFTA Awards, Torres managed to crack the five-nominee slate and becomes the second Brazilian actor to be nominated for an Oscar after her mother, Fernanda Montenegro for Salles’ Central Station in 1999.
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Gascón, in groundbreaking milestone, also becomes the first openly transgender performer nominated at the Oscars. In Emilia Pérez, she plays a cartel kingpin who tries to begin a new life after going through a gender transition. Gascón has been recognized at all the precursor awards (Golden Globes, SAG, Critics’ Choice, BAFTA) for her performance and is part of the musical’s historic haul. Despite hailing from France, Emilia Pérez is a Spanish-language movie that takes place in Mexico.
The Best Actress category at the Oscars remains the only one to acknowledge multiple international performances in the same year for different films. The first occurrence took place for the year 1966 — when Anouk Aimée was nominated for the French film A Man and a Woman and Ida Kamińska for the Czechoslovakian movie The Shop on Main Street, where she speaks Yiddish and Slovak. A Man and a Woman was nominated for four awards at the Oscars and claimed Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. Aimée also won the Golden Globe for Best Drama Actress, but she and Kamińska both came up short at the Oscars to Elizabeth Taylor for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
The next two occasions came consecutively starting in 1975 with Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H.) and Carol Kane (Hester Street), both standalone nominees for their movies. At the age of 20, Adjani became the youngest ever Best Actress nominee and held that record for 28 years until Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for Whale Rider. And although Hester Street is an American film, Kane’s character speaks Yiddish throughout the runtime of the dramedy. Both actresses lost to Louise Fletcher from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
In 1976, Marie-Christine Barrault (Cousin Cousine) and Liv Ullmann (Face to Face) were both nominated for movies with broad Oscar appeal. Another French flick, Cousin Cousine received three nominations including Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. Meanwhile, Ullmann earned her second Oscar nod as Ingmar Bergman’s muse (the Swedish director was also cited in Best Director for Face to Face) after receiving her first four years prior for The Emigrants. Alas, Faye Dunaway won the prize for Network.
Now almost half a century later, Gascón and Torres have achieved that milestone once again. In all of those examples, none of the aforementioned actresses were able to snatch the Oscar. Perhaps that will change as the season is still young. The 97th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will take place on March 2.
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