Selena Gomez Defends Herself From Eugenio Derbez’s ‘Emilia Pérez’ Criticism: “I’m Sorry, I Did The Best I Could With The Time I Was Given”

Selena Gomez is defending herself from Eugenio Derbez‘s criticism of her work on Emilia Pérez.

Derbez was a guest on the Hablando de Cine podcast, where he said that Gomez’s acting was “indefensible.”

Gomez plays the role of Jessi del Monte in the Jacques Audiard musical crime comedy film. The Wizards of Waverly Place alum is not fluent in Spanish, but in the film, she speaks Spanish, something that Derbez didn’t think was right.

“Selena is indefensible,” Derbez said. “I [watched the film] with people, and every time she had a scene, we looked at each other to say to each other, ‘Wow, what is this?’”

The podcast host Gaby Meza recognized that Gomez is “a very talented actress” and has nominations for her work on Only Murders in the Building “but Spanish is not her main language, not her secondary or fifth language. And that’s why I feel like she doesn’t know what she’s saying. If she doesn’t know what she’s saying, she can’t give her acting any nuance.”

After Meza gave her criticism, Derbez told her, “Gimme five,” in agreement with her.

“I’m glad you’re saying it because I said, ‘Why is no one talking about that?’ Derbez added.

Derbez, who starred in the Oscar-winning film CODA, doesn’t understand why Gomez’s work hasn’t been questioned and offers an explanation for why she has been receiving awards for her role in Emilia Pérez.

“I feel like they don’t speak Spanish,” Derbez explained. “If you watch a Russian film or a German film, that is subtitled to Spanish and you see someone [speaking in the original language], you say, ‘Oh, look. OK! Interesting.’”

Derbez said that the audience doesn’t notice that the acting is flat because they don’t understand the language and read subtitles instead. The actor said that he watched a screening of the film with the director and during a Q&A after he found out Audiard doesn’t speak Spanish or English.

“I felt it was an interesting experiment,” he said. “How funny that a director… I liked the film, aside from the Selena [scenes] that jump at you, because it has salvageable things. But I told myself, ‘How weird that 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 made a film in Russian without knowing the culture or speaking Russian and talk in French.”

After someone clipped that part of the interview and shared it on TikTok, it got to Gomez’s eyes, who replied to the post saying, “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.”

Emilia Pérez is a musical crime drama written and directed by Jacques Audiard. The film stars Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Adriána Paz, Mark Ivanir, and Edgar Ramírez. Gascón stars as a cartel leader who enlists a lawyer to help her disappear and transition into a woman.