Oscars 2025 | Zoe Saldaña wins Best Supporting Actress for ‘Emilia Pérez’

Zoe Saldaña earned her first Academy Award for best supporting actress in Emilia Pérez, capping an already accomplished awards season.

Zoe Saldaña earned her first Academy Award for best supporting actress in Emilia Pérez, capping an already accomplished awards season.

“Mami! Mami!” a tearful Saldaña said. “My mom is here. My whole family is here. I am floored by this honor. Thank you to the academy for recognizing the quiet heroism and the power in a woman like Rita and talking about powerful women. My fellow nominees, the love and community that you have offered to me is a true gift, and I will pay it forward.”

Saldaña accepted the award from the reigning winner in the category, Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

The win adds to a collection of successes for the star on the awards circuit: Saldaña won her first Golden Globe in January, and notched wins at the British Academy Film Awards, the Critics Choice Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

“My grandmother came to this country in 1961. I am a proud child of immigrant parents. With dreams and dignity and hard working hands,” Saldaña said. “And I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award. And I know I will not be the last.”

Saldaña, a front-runner in the category, was among a roster of actors also nominated for the first time, including Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown, Ariana Grande in Wicked, and Isabella Rossellini in Conclave. Felicity Jones, nominated for her role in The Brutalist, was previously nominated in 2015.

In Emilia Pérez, Saldaña played the down-on-her-luck lawyer Rita Castro, hired by a Mexican drug lord to help facilitate gender-affirming surgery. That drug lord becomes Emilia Pérez, played by best actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly transgender actor nominated for an Oscar.