The musical Emilia Pérez features Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña in her first full musical. For each artist, the songwriters had to tailor the film’s songs to them. Composer-songwriter Clément Ducol and songwriter Camille explained the process at Deadline’s Sound & Screen Film showcase.
With Gomez, the pair said they had to write a new song to replace a previous one they had written. Director Jacques Audiard asked them to help him write a song that was right for the actor and pop star.
“So we watched her documentary My Mind and Me,” Ducol said. “The song “Mi Camino” came to mind very quickly.”
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Saldaña’s number, “El Mal,” went through a long evolution too. Camille and the film’s star Karla Sofía Gascón also sing “El Mal” with Saldaña in which they call out hypocrites in society.
“We went from protest bluesy song, then we went to a funky song, then hip hop, then we ended up with one that suits Zoe very well,” Camille said. “It’s very rhythmical with a live band behind it.”
Saldaña plays a lawyer hired by a cartel boss (Gascón) to fake their death and begin a new life as a woman. Gomez plays the drug lord’s wife.
The Netflix film and its songs are in Spanish, a language Ducol does not speak. He said he saw the language itself musically. “I can’t speak Spanish so for me it’s like a musical language,” he said. “It’s just like a new instrument with many percussive aspects on it.”
Camille is bilingual, so she was sensitive to writing lyrics that would flow musically.
“I made sure every single word was good singing, to be sung,” she said. “I’m a singer so I really wanted everything to sound good.”
The pair said they began with Audiard’s treatment, writing songs to let scenes play out. They continued configuring songs for the cast, and even in some cases after principal photography. The soundtrack is now available via Sony Masterworks.
“Every song [is] just reflecting the story but are the story,” Ducol said.
Check out the panel video above.