Seconds after winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Zoe Saldaña took to the stage with one word on her lips: “Mami!”
The Emilia Pérez star cried out for her mother, tearfully searching the audience for her face before spotting her and waving furiously.
“My mum is here … my whole family is here,” she told the crowd through tears before kicking off a moving acceptance speech.
Watch the video above.
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She thanked the Academy for “recognising the quiet heroism and the power in women” before turning her attention back to her closest loved ones, including her parents, siblings and husband, Marco Perego-Saldana, who was in tears.
“To my mum, my dad and my sisters, everything brave, outrageous and good that I’ve ever done in my life is because of you,” she said.
“And to my husband, with that beautiful hair… the biggest honour of my life is being your partner. You hung the moon and our beautiful, perfect sons fill our skies every night with stars.”
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Saldaña is the first American of Dominican origin to win an Oscar, she noted in her speech, but vowed not to be the last.
“My grandmother came to this country in 1961. I am the proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” Saldaña shared before concluding her late grandmother would be “so delighted” to know she got the award.
The actress has won several supporting actress awards in the run-up to the Oscars, including the Golden Globe, Bafta, and Sag awards.
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Emilia Pérez has also swept the Academy Awards with a record-breaking 13 nominations, which is a whopping three more nominations than any previous foreign-language film.
The musical and crime drama, which told the story of a Mexican drug trafficker seeking gender reassignment surgery, has also generated controversy because of its cast member Karla Sofía Gascón.
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The actress has been under fire for various tweets she posted between 2019 and 2024, and Conan O’Brien referred to the controversy in this year’s Oscar monologue.
“I loved Anora. I really did,” O’Brien said of the Best Picture nominee.
“Anora uses the f-word 479 times. That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist: ‘You tweeted WHAT?'”
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