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Mexican cartel boss Manitas del Monte decides to retire from business and undergo gender reassignment surgery to become the titular character of Emilia Pérez. Manitas, played by breakout star Karla Sofía Gascón, first hires fierce lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) to help facilitate her surgery, and years later, rehires her to help her reunite with wife Jessi (Selena Gomez), a rebellious woman at heart. All three leading ladies have compelling musical numbers that add context to their own personal plights.

After a theatrical run in the U.S., the musical premiered on Netflix in November.

French composing duo Clément Ducol and Camille crafted the musical’s score. Their songs not only played a major role in advancing the film’s story, but they went on to take a life of their own. Initially, Ducol and Camille received a brief 20-page treatment from the director. “What was exciting was that Jacques invited us to be part of it since the very beginning,” Ducol told Billboard. “The goal was that the music and the songs were linked to the story and deal with emotions. That it wasn’t only music reflecting the story but the music was the story. The music shifts along with characters. It’s a story of emancipation, transformation and evolution, so the music embodies all of that.”

Ducol and Camille aren’t native Spanish speakers but Camille wrote the lyrics in Spanish with the help of language consultants who offered feedback that was “accurate and fair,” Camille explained. “Sometimes I imagined the lyrics in French, then I would switch to Spanish very quickly because I needed to hear how it actually sounded,” Camille explained. “There’s no point in writing in French and translating. It has to be in the language because the lyrics talk about the country, the reality, the landscapes, the people,” she added.

The musical numbers we hear in Emilia Pérez are as audacious and genre-bending as the narrative itself. The genres that power the musical range from pop to rock and rap. “The inspiration was only the story and characters, it was a very intuitive process,” Ducol said. “There weren’t pre-existing ideas of what could be used, no styles were pre-determined. Jacques likes to say that music is trans-genre too, not only Emilia.”

Emilia Pérez‘s “El Mal” (performed by Saldaña) won best original song — motion picture at the Golden Globes. It’s also one of the best musical numbers in the project as a passionate Rita takes the spotlight at a benefit to call out the corruption in Mexico. “There was already this kind of rap, rock, opera [base], but with an arrangement more electronic,” Ducol said. “And when Zoe sang the song and performed and danced, Jacques was at the studio and said we needed something more acoustic and rough. We redid the song with a live rock band.”

Director Jacques Audiard flew to New York to meet with Selena Gomez, whom he had seen in 2012’s Spring Breakers. “No, I didn’t know Selena Gomez the music star, but there’s a simple reason for this,” Audiard told The Hollywood Reporter. “She’s 30. I’m 72. I’m not on social media, not on Instagram.” After their meeting in New York, Gomez auditioned for the role of Jessi via Zoom, and performed one of the musical numbers. “I acted insane in the audition, surrendered and completely gave myself,” Gomez told THR in Cannes.

When Jessi (Gomez) reaches a point of liberation in the film, she performs the rebellious “Mi Camino.” The musical number is almost like a ’90s music, video and Gomez is very much in her pop star element. “We had written the bedroom scene for her, like walls turning into a techno song, something very punk,” Ducol explained to Billboard. “We had another song even punkier than this one and very rebellious. The first one was more like she wanted to rebel, and the second one was, ‘I’m rebelling.’ We hadn’t met Selena yet at that point and when Jacques met Selena he told us, ‘Unfortunately we have to write another song. Help me find the song that tells the story of her as a woman and not only as the actress…’ He wanted her to be revealed.”

While the majority of the musical is set in Mexico, it was actually shot in a studio in Paris. “The film was demanding more stylization. So I decided to come back to France and shoot in a studio. It was like I returned to the project’s DNA, back to the stage, back to the opera,” Audiard told THR.

The French director recreated Mexico City, London, Tel Aviv and Switzerland on a backlot in Bry-sur-Marne, a suburb in Paris. According to THR, the production crew spent 49 days in the studio, “using extensive backdrops with photographic plates shot on location” — and took five days of shooting exterior work in Mexico for the final scene.

“Selena is indefensible,” Mexican comedian and movie star Eugenio Derbez said in a clip that was shared on TikTok from the Hablando de Cine podcast, where he spoke about Selena Gomez’s Spanish in Emilia Pérez. “I was there [watching the movie] with people, and every time a scene came [with her in it], we looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, what is this?’”

Gomez responded to the criticism in the comments section of the TikTok post. “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.”

Gomez speaks Spanish in the movie but she is not fluent in the language. Derbez later posted an apology to Gomez in a letter posted to TikTok. “I truly apologize for my careless comments — they are indefensible and go against everything I stand for,” he wrote wrote. “As Latinos, we should always support one another. There’s no excuse. I was wrong, and I deeply admire your career and your kind heart.”

Following Derbez’s comments, Gascón defended her co-star during an interview with CNN‘s Juan Carlos Arciniegas. “It is an opinion and everyone has the right to that. What I don’t like is when they say one thing and then contradict it at the same time. Something has been said, take it to the end. If you have put your foot in your mouth, it’s OK to ask for forgiveness — but if it’s your opinion, and you think it’s right, who’s stopping you from expressing your opinion? Does everyone have to like what everyone else does? Maybe I don’t like what he does. Or whoever does it,” the Spanish actress said.

“Selena Gomez, whom I adore with all my heart, has done the best job of her life I think, I always tell her that. I don’t know if she’s aware of this though. Selena Gomez is not playing a Mexican, so you can’t criticize her accent or the way she speaks Spanish, because her character is neither Mexican nor Spanish,” she added. “She is a person from the United States who lives on the border and has married a drug trafficker. Who said that she hasn’t built her character that way, and that when she talks to me she speaks perfectly in Spanish?”