(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Instances)
Karla Sofía Gascón, 52 “Emilia Pérez” (as a male cartel boss turned feminine activist)
Warming up: Spanish-born Gascón honed her craft on Mexican telenovelas and in 2018 started the transgender transition that helped inform her “Emilia Pérez” efficiency. Killer scene: Adorned with gold tooth, stringy hair, face tattoos and beard, Gascón’s crime boss Manitas shocks Zoe Saldaña’s lawyer character by confiding: “I want to be a woman.”Quotable: Recapping her rapport with director Jacques Audiard, Gascón mentioned in a press release, “Since I don’t speak French and he doesn’t speak Spanish, I asked Jacques, ‘How will we communicate?’ He gave me a very beautiful answer: ‘Telepathically!’”
(Ethan Benavidez/For The Instances)
Mikey Madison, 25 “Anora” (as tender-tough intercourse employee Ani)
Warming up: Homeschooled in L.A., Madison performed a tough teen in Pamela Adlon’s acclaimed “Better Things” collection and portrayed Manson member of the family Susan “Sadie” Atkins in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Earlier than filming “Anora,” she realized the way to twerk. Killer scene: Throughout a chaotic 28-minute sequence, petite Madison as Ani probably units a document for probably the most F-bombs dropped per minute whereas breaking an intruder’s nostril and biting his confederate on the neck after they invade the mansion she shares with the cowardly son of a Russian oligarch.Quotable: Madison instructed The Instances “Anora” preparations included asking her dad to get a stripper pole. “Can you pick something up at this place and install it at my house? He called me after and was like, ‘Hey … is this for a job?’”
(Jennifer McCord / For The Instances)
Demi Moore, 62 “The Substance” (as youth-obsessed actress Elisabeth Sparkle)
Warming up: “Ghost” and “Indecent Proposal” made Moore the highest-paid actress in Hollywood at one time, but it surely was the film star’s profession as an over-50 expertise that fueled her understanding of the movie’s present business-as-jungle metaphors.Killer scene: Preparing for a date, Moore as Elisabeth research her mature face within the mirror, finds it wanting, smears the lipstick right into a grotesque smile and claws her hair with the fury of a trapped animal.Quotable: “Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a popcorn actress,” Moore famously mentioned final month in her Golden Globes acceptance speech. “That corroded me over time to the point where I thought maybe I was done with what I was supposed to do. And at a low point, this bonkers script came across my desk and the universe told me, ‘You are not done.’”
