In 2022, just after she finished shooting the third “Guardians of the Galaxy” film, Audiard asked to meet with her on a video call to discuss playing Rita in “Emilia Pérez.” She had long been a fan of the French director, who was best known for intense character dramas like “A Prophet” and “Rust and Bone.” Still, she was certain she had no shot at winning the role.

After all, why would Audiard cast her? Rita was scripted as a Mexican woman in her 20s and would require extensive singing — on paper, she was all wrong for it. In the past, Saldaña had sabotaged herself during important auditions because she was too anxious that she would lose the part, and she could feel that same fear creeping in.

She wanted to back out of the meeting. Her husband, the filmmaker Marco Perego-Saldaña, urged her not to. “Don’t you want to work with Jacques Audiard?” he asked.

“It would be a dream,” she said.

“Then dream,” he told her.

In the end, Saldaña went through with the meeting and even though a panic attack began to grip her during the video call — the voice in her head kept insisting, “They don’t like me” — one question led to another, each story led to another anecdote, and before she knew it, an hour and a half had gone by. Somehow, she had even screwed up the courage to sing.

At the end of the meeting, when Saldaña closed the laptop, she thought to herself, “That went great.” And she’s not the sort of person who lets herself think that so easily.

“Those are the moments where I feel like the universe, the higher power, is talking directly to me and saying, ‘See, I told you,’” she said. “And then all hell broke loose.”