'Emilia Perez' director Jacques Audiard has hit out at Karla Sofia Gascon for "playing the victim"

He told Deadline: "I haven't spoken to her, and I don't want to. She is in a self-destructive approach that I can't interfere in, and I really don't understand why she's continuing.

"Why is she harming herself? Why? I don't understand it, and what I don't understand about this too is why she's harming people who were very close to her.

"I'm thinking in this thing of how hurting others, of how she's hurting the crew and all these people who worked so incredibly hard on this film. I'm thinking of myself, I'm thinking of Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. I just don't understand why she's continuing to harm us.

"I'm not getting in touch with her because right now she needs space to reflect and take accountability for her actions...

"She's really playing the victim. She's talking about herself as a victim, which is surprising. It's as if she thought that words don't hurt."

Karla's tweets included posts about the murder of George Floyd, the Muslim community, and diversity at the Oscars and Jacques branded her comments "inexcusable".

And the 72-year-old director is "very sad" that the controversy has overshadowed his movie's 13 Oscar nominations.

He said: "Very unfortunately, it is taking up all the space, and that makes me very sad.

"It's very hard for me to think back to the work I did with Karla Sofía. The trust we shared, the exceptional atmosphere that we had on the set that was indeed based on trust.

"And when you have that kind of relationship and suddenly you read something that that person has said, things that are absolutely hateful and worthy of being hated, of course that relationship is affected. It's as if you fall into a hole. Because what Karla Sofía said is inexcusable."

In a lengthy social media post, Karla had addressed the backlash by apologising "to all those who have felt bad about the way I have expressed myself at any stage of my life."

She also wrote: ""I cannot repair my past actions, I can only say that today I am not the same person as 10 or 20 years ago, that although I had not committed any crime, I was not perfect either, I am not even now.

"I just try to learn and be a better person every day."