Zoe Saldana emphasised the importance of forgiveness as she collected an award for her role in Emilia Perez amid a swirling controversy over racist social media posts by her co-star Karla Sofia Gascon.
Spanish actress Gascon, who plays the titular role in the acclaimed film, has apologised after facing a backlash over resurfaced social media posts shared between 2019 and 2021 that included Islamophobic rhetoric and offensive comments about George Floyd.
Saldana, who won Best Supporting Actress at the 2025 London Critics' Circle Awards on Sunday, asked people to be "abstract with your idea of redemption" as she addressed the attendees at the event in Mayfair.
Not that she wasn't expecting to be honoured, "especially now", she explained: "It is very challenging to believe in something with so much conviction that you are willing to go against the grain and sometimes the grain can betray you because the grain can tell you that it is the right path”
She continued: "You believe in your heart, and you do it. And I feel like that is the path of an artist... to believe in what you're feeling.
"If it's coming from a place of love and purity and knowledge and education and research and hard work. Emilia was done with so much of all of those things."
Saldana - who is also up for an Academy Award - went on to thank her castmates, saying together they had made something "really beautiful" followed by her plea for people to "be abstract with your idea of redemption".
She added: "Keep your minds and your hearts open always. And keep making art and telling your truth. Please."
Gascon recently addressed the furore by taking part in a one-hour interview with CNN, insisting she "is not a racist" and that she would not be renouncing her Oscar nomination "because [she has] not committed any crime nor [has she] harmed anyone".
She claimed many of her social media posts on X, formerly Twitter, were taken out of context and suggested the alleged screenshot of her calling another co-star Selena Gomez "a rich rat" was false.
"I have never said anything about my partner. I would never refer to her that way," she insisted.
The actress, who has since deactivated her account on X, is the first transgender performer to be nominated for an Oscar in the best actress category.
