Zoe Saldaña won big at the Golden Globes 2025 for best performance by a female actor in a supporting role.
“Oh my God,” said the Emilia Perez actress as she emerged onstage to tearfully accept the award from presenters Dwayne Johnson and Auliʻi Cravalho at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 5.
“I’m filled with adrenaline, but my heart is full of gratitude,” she continued.
After speaking more about how much the award meant to her and praising her costars, Saldaña, 46, shouted out her family, saying, “I love you — you guys are everything.”
The other nominees in Saldaña’s category included her Emilia Perez costar Selena Gomez plus Ariana Grande (Wicked), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), Margaret Qualley, (The Substance) and Isabella Rossellini (Conclave).
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.
Shanna Besson/PAGE 114
In Emilia Perezwhich was nominated for 10 Golden Globes, the most for any film this year, Saldaña plays a lawyer helping Mexican drug lord Manitas, who has always privately identified as a woman, fake their death and undergo gender-affirming surgery. Years later, now known as Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón), the former drug lord hopes to reunite with wife Jessi (Gomez) and their children.
This marked the first Golden Globe nomination for Saldaña, who has starred in some of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all times, like Avatar and Marvel’s Avengers.
Saldaña previously told PEOPLE about the “wonderful” bond she formed with her Emilia Perez costars.
“There’s so much love. There’s so much respect. We’re rooting for each other. We’re happy for each other. We’re fixing each other’s makeup and wardrobes,” she said in September. “We knew what it meant to us. And knowing that it’s becoming something special to so many people is impactful.”
Shanna Besson/Pathé
Double-nominee Gomez is also up for best actress in a TV series, musical or comedy, for Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building at this year’s awards. She was previously nominated in that category in 2023 and 2024.
In the Spanish-language French musical Emilia Perez, Gomez plays Jessi.
Director Jacques Audiard told Palm Springs Life magazine that the singer told him the film “changed her life.”
“Every film has a purpose: a purpose cinematically but also a purpose for those who work on it. For an actor, it can change his or her life. I think Emilia Perez has been a useful experience for Selena,” said Audiard. “Are her followers going to follow her into this experience? I don’t know, because I don’t know them. But she told me just yesterday that this film has changed her life. … I think it’s going to affect her choices going forward.”
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Pop star Grande charmed critics with her turn as bubbly Glinda, the future Good Witch, in the Wizard of Oz prequel Wickeddirector Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the smash Broadway musical. She stars opposite Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, who is nominated in the lead actress category.
Earlier on Sunday, Grande wrote to her fans on her Instagram Stories: “all i can think about this afternoon and all morning is how deeply grateful i am to have been able to do this work and to have spent these years with Galinda.”
“i’m floating with gratitude today and cannot wait to celebrate all of the beautiful art that was made this year with my Ozian family and with all of our new friends,” continued Grande. “happy Golden Globes day.”
MUBI/Youtube
The body-horror movie The Substance features Qualley in the daring role of Sue, the younger and unpredictable version of faded star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), who generates Sue from her own body after injecting a mysterious serum.
Qualley previously told PEOPLE the film, directed by Coralie Fargeat, was “really outside of my comfort zone.” She added, “I guess, for me, it’s something I’ve really never done. I think I’ve intentionally gone the other direction throughout my career.”
Lol Crawley
Jones earned her nomination for playing a pivotal role in The Brutalist: Erzsébet, the wife of architect László (Adrien Brody), who survived the horrors of the Holocaust and comes to the U.S. in search of the American dream.
“I couldn’t put the script down,” she told Variety of the film. “I just loved the intelligence and thought the ideology of the film was intriguing, this idea of fleeing fascism and falling straight into the arms of capitalism.”
Jones was nominated for leading actress in a drama 10 years ago for her role in the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything.
Courtesy of Focus Features
Rossellini was nominated once prior — in 1997 — for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping movie Crime of the Century. In ConclaveRossellini plays the all-seeing Sister Agnes, a role with very few lines of dialogue.
“[Director Edward Berger] kept me in total silence until I have one pivotal scene, which I think underlined so well the patriarchal society of the Vatican and women’s subservient roles,” she told Town & Country magazine.
“They’re present but never speaking — like shadows. I am circulating through the film never saying anything, but when she speaks, she speaks so powerfully. I love that.”
See PEOPLE’s full coverage of the 82nd annual Golden Globes ceremony, broadcasting live from The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on CBS and Paramount+.
