beyonce irreplaceable live i am world tour

SETLIST: 01. “Déjà Vu” 02. “Crazy in Love” (contains elements of “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)”, “Work It Out”, “Let Me Clear My Throat” and “Pass the Peas”) 03. “Naughty Girl” 04. “Freakum Dress” 05. “Get Me Bodied” (Extended Mix) 06. “Smash Into You” 07. “Ave Maria” (contains excerpts from “Angel”) 08. “Broken-Hearted Girl” 09. “If I Were A Boy” (contains excerpts from “You Oughta Know” along with elements of “California Love”) 10. “Diva” 11. “Beyoncé’s Radio” (contains excerpts from “Ring The Alarm”, “Suga Mama”, and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”) 12. “Radio” 13. “Me, Myself and I”1 14. “Ego” 15. “Hello” 16. “Baby Boy” (contains excerpts from “You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)”) 17. “Irreplaceable” 18. “Sweet Dreams” 2 19. “Check On It” 20. Medley: “Bootylicious”, “Bug A Boo”, “Jumpin’ Jumpin'” 21. “Upgrade U” 22. “Video Phone” (contains elements of “Snap Yo Fingers”) 23. “Say My Name” 24. “At Last” 25. “Listen” 26. “Scared of Lonely” 3 27. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (contains excerpts from “Shout”) 28. “Halo” 29. “MJ Tribute” (contains excerpts from “Forever Young”

TOUR FACTS:

TOUR DATES:

Festivals and other miscellaneous performances [a] This concert was a part of the Essence Music Festival [b] These concerts were a part of the Summer Sonic Festival [c] This concert took part in the opening event for the Donbass Arena [d] This concert was a part of the F1 Rocks Singapore Festival. [e] This concert was a part of the Yasalam After-Race Concerts [f] This concert was a part of a competition presented by Trident Gum

Additional Notes: – During her performances in Edmonton and Saskatoon, Knowles performed “Flaws and All” as the final number. She performed “Halo” before “If I Were A Boy”. Also, in Saskatoon, instead of singing the abbreviated version of “Déjà Vu”, Knowles performed the song in its entirety. – In Spain, Argentina, Chile and Peru, Knowles performed parts of “Irreplaceable” in Spanish. While in Spain, when performing “Hello”, she said “Bueno” and “Hola” during the chorus sometimes in lieu of “Hello”. She forgot the lyrics of the Spanish version during her concert in Argentina. – During her concert in Zurich on May 16, Knowles performed “Flaws and All” after “Video Phone” to a boy named Tim. – At the concerts in Paris, Birmingham, Chicago, Manchester and Melbourne children joined Knowles on stage whilst she performed “Halo”. – During her performance in London (June 9, 2009), Knowles performed “One More Try” by George Michael. At the same performance, Michael joined Knowles on stage to perform a duet of “If I Were a Boy”. – During her performances in New York City, Jay Z performed with Knowles during “Crazy in Love” and “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)”. – During the performance in Philadelphia, Knowles performed “I Can’t Help It”, as a dedication to Michael Jackson. – During her performance in Sydney (September 18, 2009), Knowles dedicated “Halo” to Chelsea James. – During her concert in London(November 15, 2009), Knowles was joined onstage by Jay-Z for “Crazy in Love” and Kanye West for “Ego”. – During her performances in London, Dublin and Florianópolis, Knowles performed “Sweet Dreams” on the B-Stage. – During her performance in São Paulo (February 6, 2010), Knowles performed “Listen” a cappella on the B-stage. Also, she said “I want you guys to know that this is probably my biggest performance ever in history”.

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I Am...World Tour

25 SONGS • 1 HOUR AND 17 MINUTES • NOV 30 2010

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• Song played from tape I Am Play Video
• Déjà Vu Play Video
• Crazy in Love Play Video
• Naughty Girl Play Video
• Freakum Dress Play Video
• Get Me Bodied Play Video
• Smash Into You Play Video
• Ave Maria Play Video
• Song played from tape If I Were a Boy Outtakes Play Video
• Broken-Hearted Girl Play Video
• If I Were a Boy Play Video
• Song played from tape Robot Play Video
• Diva Play Video
• Song played from tape Beyoncé's Radio Play Video
• Radio Play Video
• Me, Myself and I Play Video
• Ego Play Video
• Hello Play Video
• Song played from tape Divinity Roxx Bass Jam / The Mama's Medley Play Video
• Song played from tape Heads or Tails Play Video
• Song played from tape Sasha Prevails Play Video
• Baby Boy Play Video
• You Don't Love Me (No, No, No) ( Dawn Penn  cover) Play Video
• Irreplaceable Play Video
• Check on It Play Video
• Bootylicious ( Destiny’s Child  song) Play Video
• Bug a Boo ( Destiny’s Child  song) Play Video
• Jumpin', Jumpin' ( Destiny’s Child  song) Play Video
• Upgrade U Play Video
• Video Phone Play Video
• Say My Name ( Destiny’s Child  song) Play Video
• Song played from tape Survivor ( Destiny’s Child  song) Play Video
• At Last ( Harry Warren  cover) Play Video
• Listen Play Video
• Halo Play Video
• Song played from tape Single Ladies Play Video
• Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) Play Video

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I Am... World Tour

26 November 2010 25 Songs, 1 hour, 17 minutes ℗ 2010 Sony Music Entertainment

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I Am...World Tour

31 SONGS • 1 HOUR AND 17 MINUTES • NOV 30 2010

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A powerhouse singer, songwriter, producer, and dancer, Beyoncé is a multifaceted global superstar by any measure. The Houstonian rose to fame in the late '90s as the central member of pop-R&B group Destiny's Child. The following decade, she started her ongoing streak of number one solo studio albums with Dangerously in Love (2003), the source of her first number one pop single, the ecstatic "Crazy in Love." Nearly omnipresent hits such as the elegantly dismissive "Irreplaceable" (2006) and boisterous "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (2008), combined with sold-out world tours and Grammy Awards, all heightened Beyoncé's profile in the 2000s. Billboard named her female artist of the decade, while the RIAA acknowledged that, with 64 gold and platinum certifications, she was its top-selling artist. Beyoncé continued to diversify in the 2010s with the visual albums Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), followed by the Jay-Z collaboration Everything Is Love (2018) and her work on the remake of The Lion King (2019). The latter project was expanded with the soundtrack The Lion King: The Gift, executive-produced by Beyoncé, who also wrote and directed the related musical film Black Is King (2020). Beyoncé has since become the most awarded artist in Grammy history with Renaissance (2022), a cosmopolitan dancefloor celebration tying together gospel, disco, house, bounce, and Afrobeats with nods to ballroom culture. The second act in that series, Cowboy Carter (2024), carried Beyoncé into the country music realm and topped the pop, country, and folk charts.

Born in Houston, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles began performing at age seven, winning over 30 local competitions for her dancing and vocal abilities. She joined her cousin Kelly Rowland and classmates LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett in forming an adolescent vocal group. Mathew Knowles, Beyoncé's father and Rowland's legal guardian, signed on to be the girls' manager, eventually quitting his full-time job to focus on their efforts. This situation would ultimately lead to the creation of one of the most popular female R&B groups of all time: Destiny's Child.

Destiny's Child gained momentum throughout the '90s. They appeared on Star Search in 1992 (under the name Girls Tyme) and weathered several lineup changes before signing to Columbia in 1997. Four studio albums later, the group had officially become the best-selling female group of all time, with such smash hits as "Jumpin' Jumpin'," "Bills, Bills, Bills," "Say My Name," and "Survivor" bolstering the young women's momentum despite lawsuits from former members Roberson and Luckett. In 2001, Beyoncé, Rowland, and replacement member Michelle Williams allowed themselves a break from the group to pursue individual solo careers. Before landing several movie roles, Beyoncé became the first Black female artist and second woman ever to win the annual ASCAP Pop Songwriter of the Year Award. An appearance in the MTV drama Carmen: A Hip Hopera quickly followed, but it was her role as Foxxy Cleopatra in 2002's Austin Powers in Goldmember that established her as a true Hollywood star.

While "Work It Out," her inclusion on the movie's soundtrack failed to chart in the U.S., it was a Top Ten hit in the U.K. Beyoncé's full-length solo debut, 2003's Dangerously in Love, reached multi-platinum status. Featuring collaborations with Sean Paul, Missy Elliott, OutKast's Big Boi, and romantic interest Jay-Z, the album spawned a total of four Top Ten singles and garnered the singer five Grammys. Destiny's Child reconvened the following year to release Destiny Fulfilled; upon completing the resulting tour, the group issued one final album, a greatest-hits compilation entitled #1's, and subsequently disbanded. Beyoncé turned her full attention to her burgeoning solo career. She released B'day in September 2006 and, three months later, turned in an award-winning performance for the movie musical Dreamgirls. The singer then embarked on the Beyoncé Experience concert tour and released a live DVD in November 2007.

The following year proved to be another busy one as Beyoncé landed the role of Etta James in Cadillac Records, a musical biopic that explored the heyday of Chicago's Chess label. Shooting commenced in February 2008, with Beyoncé also serving as co-executive producer. One month before the film's December release, the singer released her third studio album, I Am...Sasha Fierce. The double-disc effort emphasized her two distinct personalities, allowing Beyoncé to explore both mainstream sounds and traditional R&B. Some live releases followed. Released in 2009, I Am...Yours, a CD/DVD set, documented an August 2009 performance at Wynn Las Vegas, while 2010's I Am...World Tour, available in separate audio and video formats, was recorded at London's significantly larger O2 Arena (a few months after the Vegas program). She followed ten Grammy nominations with 2011's 4, which debuted at the top of the Billboard 200. One of her most energetic and empowering tracks, "Run the World (Girls)," was issued as the lead single, while "Love on Top" eventually won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance.

Giving birth to Blue Ivy Carter in January 2012 didn't slow her down. Within a few months, she was performing in Atlantic City, and she later appeared at President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Joined by Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland, she headlined the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show. Life Is But a Dream, a documentary, first aired on HBO in February 2013, and was followed by appearances on albums by Rowland, the-Dream, and Jay-Z. New material, such as "Bow Down" and "Standing on the Sun," trickled out without proper releases. Then, on December 13 -- with no preceding announcement -- Beyoncé released a self-titled visual album (a full-length studio recording with an accompanying video for each song). Her husband and daughter, along with Drake, Frank Ocean, and writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (via a sampled TED talk), made guest appearances. Beyoncé, assisted by the likes of Hit-Boy, Pharrell, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, and Miguel, co-wrote and co-produced the majority of the album's material. Like Beyoncé's four previous solo albums, it went to number one, and quickly went platinum in the U.S. Three months after she completed the Mrs. Carter Show world tour, she and Jay-Z embarked on the On the Run Tour, which reached the U.S., Canada, and France from June through September 2014. The following February, she was nominated for six Grammy Awards and won three, including Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance, both for "Drunk in Love." Although she didn't release any new material in 2015, she co-wrote and appeared on Naughty Boy's Top Five U.K. pop hit "Runnin' (Lose It All)," and contributed vocals to Coldplay's "Hymn for the Weekend."

In February 2016, a new single, "Formation," and its trenchant accompanying video, were released just before her Super Bowl 50 half-time performance. That April, another striking visual album, Lemonade, premiered on HBO, and its audio was subsequently available for streaming and download. Some of the album's specific, forthright lyrics fueled speculation about the status of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's relationship. Kendrick Lamar, Jack White, James Blake, and the Weeknd appeared as featured artists, while Just Blaze, Mike Dean, and Diplo were among the co-producers. The Formation World Tour began days later, just before the album became her sixth consecutive number one studio album. After wrapping that half-year trek, Coachella announced that Beyoncé would be headlining the festival's 2017 installment. While that performance was eventually canceled due to the birth of her twins, she would make a triumphant return to the desert stage a year later. Backed by a pyramid constructed with bleachers and over two-hundred backing performers, Beyoncé became the first Black female to headline the festival, closing both weekends of Coachella 2018 with historic performances that highlighted Black culture and featured guest appearances by Jay-Z, Solange, and a reunited Destiny's Child.

Months later in June 2018, while Beyoncé and Jay-Z's co-headlining On the Run II tour was underway, the couple released Everything Is Love, a collaborative full-length credited to the Carters. Led by "Apeshit," a single featuring input from Pharrell Williams, Quavo, and Offset, the album narrowly missed the top spot on the Billboard 200. Wrapping at the end of the year, On the Run II was the third-highest grossing tour of 2018.

True to form, Beyoncé issued a surprise live album, the Grammy-winning Homecoming, in April 2019. Paired with a film of the same title, the set documented her 2018 Coachella performance and added a cover of Maze's "Before I Let Go." Later that year, she not only starred as Nala in the photorealistic remake of The Lion King, but curated the film's accompanying soundtrack, The Lion King: The Gift. Featuring a wealth of African artists collaborating with the likes of co-star Donald Glover, Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, Kendrick Lamar, and Tierra Whack, the album also included her single "Spirit," which went on to receive both Grammy and Oscar nominations. Beyoncé returned to the top of the Hot 100 in May 2020 as a featured artist on Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage Remix." Only two months later, she was behind the musical film Black Is King, also her third visual album. She took four awards from the subsequent Grammy ceremony: Best R&B Performance (for the Juneteenth charity single "Black Parade"), Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance (both for "Savage"), and Best Music Video ("Brown Skin Girl"). Another soundtrack song, "Be Alive," arrived in May 2021 as part of the tennis biopic King Richard.

In June 2022, Beyoncé released "Break My Soul," a house track made with "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" collaborators the-Dream and Tricky Stewart, as the first single off her seventh studio album. The song reached the Top 20 of the Hot 100 before the late-July arrival of its parent release, Renaissance. A vibrant and uptempo collection inspired in part by post-'70s Black and queer dance music, Renaissance debuted at number one and in early 2023 earned Beyoncé four more Grammy Awards, making her the most awarded artist in the organization's history. Following the triumphant Renaissance World Tour, she released its accompanying documentary concert movie Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, which she wrote, directed, and produced. A new track, "My House," was released in conjunction.

Beyoncé's next era was unveiled in February 2024 during Super Bowl LVIII in the form of singles such as the chart-topping "Texas Hold 'Em" -- the first number one on the country chart by a Black woman -- and the sweeping "16 Carriages," from the country-tinged second act of her album trilogy, which she dubbed Cowboy Carter. The expansive 27-song set staked her claim in the genre with the help of guests such as veterans Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Linda Martell, while the likes of Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, and Shaboozey represented a younger generation of Black country artists. An intensely personal statement about reclamation, belonging, and legacy, Cowboy Carter entered the pop, country, and folk charts at number one. ~ TiVo Staff

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Irreplaceable (Live)

• Year of Release: 2010

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Meet the Trans Actress Who Could Make Oscar History

Karla Sofía Gascón plays a drug kingpin who undergoes gender-affirming surgery in a performance that wowed Cannes. Is the academy next?

For “Emilia Pérez,” Karla Sofía Gascón burrowed deeply into the title role: “To remove this character, it’s almost like I had to do an exorcism.” Credit... Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

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By Kyle Buchanan

• Aug. 28, 2024 Updated 4:09 p.m. ET

There has never been a movie quite like “Emilia Pérez,” so it’s fitting that its star Karla Sofía Gascón is one of a kind, too.

In the film from the director Jacques Audiard, Gascón plays a Mexico City cartel kingpin who fakes death in order to transition abroad in secret. Years after her gender-affirming surgery, the newly rechristened Emilia contacts the lawyer who helped arrange it (Zoe Saldaña) and has one more request: a reunion with the unsuspecting wife (Selena Gomez) and children she left behind, even though returning to the scene of her old crimes could have dire consequences.

The multitude of genres suggested by this synopsis — a gritty drug-world exposé, a family melodrama, a trans-empowerment narrative — are further complicated by the fact that “Emilia Pérez” is a musical, meaning the characters are liable to break into song whether they’re in a love scene or clashing in a heated gunfight. In a film full of big swings, it’s hard to imagine any of the wild ideas holding together if it weren’t for Gascón, who can contain all of those multitudes in a single freighted look. Many pundits believe that after Netflix releases “Emilia Pérez” in November, Gascón will make history as the first openly trans actress nominated for an Oscar.

In May, the 52-year-old Gascón was the breakout star of the Cannes Film Festival , where “Emilia Pérez” won a best actress award that was shared among all of the movie’s leading women. Since her castmates had returned home before the awards ceremony, an overcome Gascón took the stage on their behalf, and her emotional speech was the night’s highlight. At the microphone for nearly six minutes, Gascón flitted between Spanish and English as she tearfully asserted the humanity of trans people, joked about bribing the jurors, paid romantic tribute to her co-star Gomez, then apologized to Gomez’s boyfriend for her ardor.

Afterward, Gascón tried to explain her speech’s breathless sprawl. “I’ve never been given a prize,” she told reporters. “I’ve mostly been given blows and kicks.”

Spanish-speaking audiences may already be familiar with Gascón, a veteran of Mexican telenovelas who starred in the hit 2013 film “Nosotros los Nobles” and transitioned six years ago while in the public eye. “It was very difficult,” she told me recently over lunch in Los Angeles. “People knew me a certain way and then I changed, so I constantly felt that I had to justify myself. I was always fighting with everyone.”

To have her identity and transition dissected in editorials and on talk shows was a constant struggle. “When you go through those moments, you have the impression that the whole world is against you,” she said. “Some of the criticism is people saying, ‘What you did to yourself is going against your nature.’ I want to tell them, look at yourself in the mirror! If you’re that natural, take off your clothes, go hunt for rabbits in the wild, and let your nails grow. Let’s see how nature will suit you then!”

Gascón, speaking in Spanish with a translator present, talks with the excitement of someone who knows herself well and can’t wait to tell you what she’s learned. As we lunched by the pool at the Sunset Tower Hotel, she sometimes held court at such length that her translator filled three pages of a legal pad just scribbling down a single story. (Whenever the translator struggled to catch up, Gascón’s eyes flickered with comic impatience.) In that way, she is quite unlike Emilia, who needs to say very little to be heard.

Most of the time, though, Gascón can’t help but recall her character. As we ate, I noticed the same quicksilver shifts from gravity to levity that had proved so compelling in her performance. When I mentioned that to Saldaña on a call a few days later, she laughed. “I’m telling you,” she said, “there were moments in which I was like, what is the difference between Emilia and Karla?”

Audiard put it more bluntly: “I think that Emilia is Karla Sofía. I wouldn’t know where one starts and the other ends.”

At times, even Gascón was confused. Before filming “Emilia Pérez,” she had shared her own life experiences with Audiard, who began to tailor the titular role to his star. Once production began, Gascón burrowed so deeply into character that she wondered whether Emilia would ever be possible to shake.

“To remove this character, it’s almost like I had to do an exorcism,” she said.

GASCÓN HAS NEVER been afraid to dream big. Born in Alcobendas, Spain, a town near Madrid, she was raised in a working-class family but felt destined for stardom.

“At 16 years old, I woke up one day knowing what I had to do — don’t ask me how,” Gascón said.

She used her mother’s old rotary phone to call Televisión Española to inform the broadcaster that she wanted to appear onscreen. Gascón’s ambition far outstripped her opportunities — the only jobs available then were background-player gigs — but she took everything she could find and kept at it, eventually working her way up to commercials and minor TV shows.

Still, she yearned for more. The director Julián Pastor encouraged her to move to Mexico, where she was cast in projects that required horse-riding and sword fighting. “It was full of action and adventure, exactly what I was looking for,” she said.

To adapt to Mexico’s exaggerated telenovela style, an acting teacher advised her to go in the opposite direction, encouraging her to be more naturalistic, less broad. “That got me into a lot of trouble because instead it was the producers who had to adapt to me,” she said. But the biggest adaptation was still to come.

By her mid-40s, with several career successes under her belt, Gascón still had not yet begun to live openly as a woman, and the years spent in secret had taken their toll. “There were some very painful moments,” she said. “I even thought of taking my own life at some points.” With the support of her family, she made the decision to pursue gender-affirming surgery. Of her wife, Marisa, whom Gascón has been with since they met in a nightclub as teenagers, she said: “We’ve obviously shared a big chunk of our lives together, but I’ve never deceived her about who I was.”

Still, Gascón made the decision knowing it could cost her everything in the career she had worked so hard for. “When I finished my transition, I didn’t know if I was going to have a career after that,” she said.

IN 2022, WHEN Audiard, the director of acclaimed dramas like “A Prophet” and “Rust and Bone,” embarked on his casting search for “Emilia Pérez,” he found himself frustrated. Sessions in Los Angeles and Mexico City had come up empty, in part because Audiard originally conceived the character as much younger. “I realized I was wrong about the character’s age,” he said. “If they were too young, it’s as if they didn’t have a history.”

That much, Gascón had in spades. After transitioning, a diverse creative portfolio had helped her get by — Gascón has written two books and competed on a celebrity edition of “MasterChef” in Mexico — and an eight-episode role in the Netflix series “Rebelde” served to re-establish her as a performer. But she had never made anything like “Emilia Pérez,” and when the audition came her way, she nearly passed, fearing the musical elements were out of her reach.

Still, she put herself on tape and earned a flight to Paris to meet Audiard, who said they formed an instant connection. “The minute I saw her, that was it,” he explained, praising Gascón’s sense of authority and playfulness: “That’s what you call presence.”

While making “Emilia Pérez,” Gascón moved to Paris without her family in an effort to commit fully to the character. Sometimes, that intensity could be destabilizing.

“There were two moments in particular when I went to the depth of darkness in my own life,” she said, singling out scenes when Emilia wakes up in the hospital after surgery and later when she is reunited with a son who no longer recognizes her. “My brain didn’t want to go back to that place.”

Just as Emilia does, Gascón leaned on Saldaña and Gomez to get by.

“Karla was very much the center of the whole story, so making sure that she had what she needed was important for all of us,” said Saldaña, who marveled at how deeply Gascón went into character: “I met Karla a year before we started shooting, and then I met Karla at the wrap party.”

Saldaña and Gomez invited her to shake off the production at a Beyoncé concert, but Gascón demurred and headed home to Madrid. She needed to see her family, though her teenage daughter couldn’t believe the concert (and company) she’d just turned down.

“When my daughter found out, she was like, ‘Are you insane? How could you say no to that?’” Gascón said, laughing.

WHILE IN LOS ANGELES, GASCÓN dropped by Netflix to discuss her promotional tour, which will involve a flurry of film festivals, then a sustained awards campaign that may make history. (Though she would be the first openly trans actress recognized by the Oscars, the first openly trans performer to receive any nomination was the singer Anohni, who was up for best song in 2016 but boycotted the ceremony. Elliot Page, who was nominated for the 2007 film “Juno,” came out publicly as trans in 2020.)

After a screening at Netflix, Gascón told me that a staffer there had praised her performance but failed to realize she also played Emilia before her transition, when the character presents as a gruff, bearded drug lord.

“I can tell you that from an egocentric point of view, I’m mad that people don’t realize it’s me playing both,” she said, “but at the same time, I feel very proud, too.”

Audiard initially sought to cast a cisgender male actor as Emilia before her transition, presuming that Gascón wouldn’t want to play that portion of the role. Instead, she fought for it.

“Now I understand why she was so interested, because for her, playing the role of a man is an activity that requires creativity,” Audiard said. “As an actress, this is something you don’t refuse.”

Gascón knows that when “Emilia Pérez” debuts on Netflix, her trans identity will be subjected to scrutiny from a global audience. Even during her Cannes speech in May, she predicted, “Tomorrow, there will be plenty of comments from terrible people saying the same things about all of us trans people.” Indeed, the morning after, the French politician Marion Maréchal posted on X a comment that translated to: “So a man has won best actress.”

Gascón filed a legal complaint about the insult and posted her own colorful rejoinder on X a few days later: “No matter how much you bark, you gargoyles of Beelzebub,” Gascón wrote , “you will not be able to blur what I have achieved.”

This pattern — for every personal victory, a public controversy — is one Gascón has gotten used to, though going forward, she hopes she will be less inclined to engage with people who attack her in bad faith.

“I think I can contribute more just by talking about my work,” she said, “even though I’ve received hundreds of offers to talk to people and I still get the hunch sometimes to talk to J.K. Rowling and tell her, ‘Hey, what’s your problem?’” She was referring to the “Harry Potter” author’s negative comments on trans women and her criticism of the Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, whose eligibility was questioned despite the International Olympic Committee’s strong defense: “It’s always the same story of these people trying to find a new victim to generate more hate.”

Though she conceded that words could sometimes wound her, Gascón felt it was a small price to pay for personal authenticity. “I have a level of freedom that many would envy,” she said. She said she hoped that feeling of inner peace could be retained during the monthslong awards campaign about to begin.

“I am 52 years old, and at this age I am in balance,” she said. “Other people are thinking, ‘Wow, this is a special moment, you must be very nervous or very excited.’ No, I am normal. I prefer it that way.”

Whether she makes Oscar history for “Emilia Pérez,” only one thing has her truly concerned.

“What I’m afraid of,” she said, “is how am I going to be able to top this?”

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist , the awards season columnist for The Times. More about Kyle Buchanan

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