Zoe Saldaña‘s acceptance speech at the 2025 BAFTAs was cut from the BBC’s broadcast of the ceremony – see what she had to say below.
Last night (February 16), the BAFTAs took place at the London’s Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre. Among the night’s biggest winners was Zoe Saldaña, who took home the award for Best Supporting Actress for Emilia Pérez.
However, her acceptance speech was reportedly cut from the BBC’s broadcast of the awards ceremony halfway through her speech. While Saldaña did let a few expletives slip throughout her speech – and the BBC has a strict no-swearing policy – the broadcaster said in a statement to LADBible that the cuts were “due to time constraints”.
The official BAFTAs account on YouTube has since shared the actress’ speech – here’s what she said: “I was told not to cry by my children, so I’m going to try.”
Saldaña quickly thanked BAFTA for recognising her: “This is so validating and a true honour, because the very few times that I went for a part with a British accent, the dialect coach was like, ‘This is not going to happen to you’. Even though I have a lot of British friends, I find myself repeating their phrases… and I know that I’m a pain in the arse.
“BAFTA thank you, this was a creative challenge of a lifetime. How do you begin to even approach a film that not just defies categorisation, and you start by taking the leap with Jacques Audiard. I want to thank my wonderful cast.”
She then went on to thank her cast mates, including controversial lead Karla Sofia Gascón, before panicking after seeing a countdown timer pop up: “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
She also thanked her mother, her husband and her children before adding: “Films are supposed to change hearts and challenge minds, and I hope that Emilia Pérez did something like this, because voices need to be heard. Just not my English accent.”
Variety also notes that following the BBC-blocked speech, Saldaña added another major “thank you” to members of the press in the winners’ room: “I’m dedicating all of these awards and the film Emilia Pérez to my nephew, Eli. He is the reason — they are the reason — I signed up to do this film in the first place. So as the proud aunt of a trans life, I will always stand with my community of trans people.”
Saldaña’s speech came after Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard thanked “my dear” Karla Sofía Gascón during his BAFTAs acceptance speech, despite her racist tweets scandal.
Last month, a series of offensive posts from Gascón’s social media accounts resurfaced, expressing hateful views regarding Muslims, the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the Oscars. She has since apologised for the comments and denied that she is racist.
She had become the first transgender woman to receive an Oscar nomination and was also nominated for Best Actress at the BAFTAs, although she was notably absent from the ceremony on Sunday night.
Saldaña has spoken about the scandal herself, saying she was “still processing everything that has transpired”. She added: “It makes me really sad because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.”
“I can only attest to the experience that I had with each and every individual that was a part, that is a part, of this film, and my experience and my interactions with them was about inclusivity and collaboration and racial, cultural and gender equity,” she added. “And it just saddens me.”
The film’s other star Selena Gomez has also said: “Some of the magic has disappeared. But I choose to continue to be proud of what I’ve done and I’m just grateful. I live with no regrets, and I would do this movie over and over again if I could.”
On February 2, Gascón appeared on a TV interview emotionally defending herself, revealing she had received death threats and abuse following the controversy.
In defence of her posts, Gascón said that she relies on “irony, sarcasm and at times exaggeration and of course I use a resource to talk in third person, if what I wrote was written by someone who thinks in a negative manner,” and that she is “obviously” a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.
In a three-star review of Emilia Pérez, which received a total of 13 Oscar nominations, NME wrote: “Whilst its blend of influences make Emilia Perez unique, they also make it exhausting. The personal impact of Emilia’s transition is undercut by a ludicrous song with lyrics about vaginoplasty, any grittiness from the drug cartel thread gets smoothed over by the schmaltzy sentimentality that surrounds it and the flashes of real visual flair act are bogged down by the twisting, tiresome plot.”
“You’ve probably never seen a movie like Emilia Perez before – and whilst there is enough meat in the performances to make you somewhat glad you did, you might not want to again.”
The post Here’s what Zoe Saldaña actually said in her censored BAFTAs speech appeared first on NME.
