‘Emilia Pérez’ Breakout Karla Sofía Gascón to Star in Trans Fairy Tale ‘Las Malas’ (Exclusive)

In her first major casting since breaking out with Cannes hit Emilia Pérez, Karla Sofía Gascón has signed on to star in Las Malas, a Spanish-language adaptation of the dark fairy-tale novel Bad Girls by author Camila Sosa Villada.

Armando Bó, who won an Academy Award for co-writing Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2014 drama Birdman, will direct the feature and is co-penning the script with Josefina Licitra.

The project hails from About Entertainment, based in Argentina and Uruguay; Infinity Hill, best known for its Oscar-nominated film Argentina 1985; and Suma Content, the Spanish independent global production company.

Gascón will lead the feature in the role of Aunt Encarna, a tough but motherly leader of a group of trans sex workers, whose routine is upset when she finds an abandoned baby and decides to adopt him without realizing she is putting everyone around her in danger.

Girls was the debut novel by Villada, an Argentinean actress who is also trans. A blend of the magical and gritty everyday street life, the novel was first published in 2019 and went on to win several awards, including the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the Grand Prix de L’Héroïne awarded by the French magazine Madame Figaro, and the Spanish Narrative Prize awarded by the Barcelona bookstore Finestres. 

Producing the project are Bó, Natacha Cervi, Mercedes Reincke, Ezequiel Olemberg, Axel Kuschevatzky, Cindy Teperman, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo.

Exec producing are Villada, Phin Glynn and Delfina Montecchia. 

Gascón broke out with Emilia Pérez, the bold crime musical directed by Jacques Audiard that Netflix picked up out of Cannes. Gascón was honored with the Cannes best actress award, marking the first time a transgender woman has won the award.

Other accolades followed for the actress, including nominations for a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice, as well as being honored with a European Film Award for best European actress and Savannah Film Festival’s Distinguished Performance award. Emilia Pérez, meanwhile, is the second most–nominated movie in Globes history and was selected to be France’s Oscar entry for the best international feature category. It also stars Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña and Adriana Paz.

Bó co-wrote Biutiful, Iñárritu’s drama that starred Javier Bardem, and is the showrunner, director and executive producer of the two-season Amazon Prime Video series El Presidente and executive producer of the limited series Cromañon. He made his feature directorial debut with El Último Elvis, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, and also helmed Animal in 2018. 

Gascón is repped by UTA and GET Agency. Bo is repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Johnson Shapiro.