Actor Zoe Saldaña, star of Star Trek, Avatar, Guardians of the Galaxy and her new film, Emilia Pérez, talks to Rhianna Dhillon about her career.
An actor who has successfully combined roles in intimate, character-driven dramas with big-budget action spectaculars, Zoe Saldaña has appeared in four of the highest-grossing films of all time, three major franchises and a wealth of films that has helped establish her as one of the most accomplished films stars of her generation.
After a variety of roles in the early 2000s from Center Stage (2000) to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), she made an impression as an immigration official in Steven Spielberg's The Terminal (2004). Her character was an avid fan of Star Trek, a characteristic that presaged J. J. Abrams' choosing her to play Nyota Uhura in his 2009 big-screen reboot of the classic sci-fi TV series. She would go on to appear in two further adventures aboard the USS Enterprise. In the same year she was cast as Uhura, she also worked with James Cameron as one of the leads in Avatar. She returned as Neytiri in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and is set to appear in subsequent episodes of the expanding space saga.
Of her blockbuster work, Saldaña is arguably best known for playing Gamora in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers universe (2014-23), balancing the characters' brittleness with waspish wit and gradually building an emotional undertow that pays off handsomely in one of Avengers: Infinity War's (2018) most surprising and heartfelt scenes.
Most recently, Saldaña lead and executive produced the independent film The Absence Of Eden, directed by Marco Perego in his feature film debut and currently stars in Taylor Sheridan's undercover CIA drama series Lioness for Paramount+, which she also executive produces with her production company Cinestar Pictures. But her most feted role to date is as a compromised lawyer in Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez (2024).
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Zoe Saldaña still, courtesy Getty Images.
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