Karla Sofía Gascón plays the villain in new western ‘Trinidad’

Karla Sofía Gascón has returned to filming after Emilia Pérez, by Jacques Audiard. The Spanish actress — who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in the narco-musical — plays Widow Bronson, the villain in the western Trinidad, which stars Gabriela Andrada and also features Paz Vega. The film is currently being shot in Spain’s Canary Islands and is co-directed by Laura Alvea and José Ortuño.

Trinidad, according to information from its producer Inefable Productions (part of ISII Group), is about a young Spanish woman who, at the end of the 19th century, flees Spanish justice and travels to the Wild West accompanied by her mother (Paz Vega) and her sister (Sofía Allepuz). In this new land, she discovers she has a talent for weapons, which will allow her to financially support her family but will also make her a target of prejudice and enemies. As for Widow Bronson, the character played by Gascón, she is described by the producer as “the matriarch of the family, a strong woman who seeks to honor her own above all else.”

Andrada starred last year in Ask Me What You Want, an adaptation of one of the hits by writer Megan Maxwell. The western began filming in the Canary Islands on April 28 and will continue until June 20. It has a budget of €14 million ($15.9 million), and includes more cast members like Milena Smit, Alfonso Sánchez, and Antonio Dechent. This is not the first time Ortuño and Alvea have co-directed, the two previously worked together on Ánimas and The Extraordinary Tale of the Times Table.

This is Gascón’s first shoot since her triumph at Cannes one year ago, when, alongside her Emilia Pérez co-stars, the Madrid native won the Best Actress award. Following that, she faced a turbulent awards season — which included César and Oscar nominations and wins at the European Film Awards and the Actors and Actresses Union ceremony — due to the controversy sparked over her offensive posts on X (formerly Twitter).

After Trinidad, more projects await her: she will star in The Life Lift, a psychological thriller by Italian debut director Stefania Rossella Grassi, in which Gascón will play a psychiatrist living with an extreme duality: she is both God and the devil. Additionally, she will act in Las malas, a trans fable adapting Camila Sosa’s book, which is directed by Armando Bó, winner of the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2015 for Birdman. In Italy, she recently premiered the Italian comedy Men and Other Inconveniences, filmed before Emilia Pérez and directed by Giorgio Serafini.

Alongside her film work, Gascón has continued her literary career. Her book Lo que queda de mí (What Remains of Me), a revision of the memoir she published in 2018 in Mexico under the title Karsia, has been available for sale since March 25.

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