Zoe Saldaña, star of the Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy film series, opens up about her struggles while working on some of cinema's biggest franchises. Saldaña got her start in the early aughts, starring in films like Center Stage, Crossroads, and Drumline. Through hard work and undeniable skill as an actor, she rose to fame, eventually going on to feature in massive franchises like Star Trek and the MCU, cementing herself as a household name.
While speaking with Women's Wear Daily, Saldaña discusses her time working on several high-profile franchises. The actor expresses gratitude for the opportunities, but quickly explains that she has felt trapped by her work, being stuck in massive franchises with little growth as an actor. Furthermore, she elaborates on the struggles women (especially those over 40) contend with in the industry. Check out Saldaña's comments on the struggles of big franchises below:
I feel that for the last 10 years of my life, I’ve been just stuck. I felt stuck doing these franchises. I’m very grateful for the opportunities that they provided, from collaborating with amazing directors and getting to meet cast members that I consider friends and getting to play a role that fans, especially children, love. But it also meant that I felt artistically stuck in my craft of not being able to expand or grow or challenge myself by playing different sorts of genres and different roles. So this is something that I wanted to do for a very long time. And wrestling, too, with this pressure that society puts on women that your youth is gone as soon as you have children and you go into your 40s. But today, now that I’m 44, I’ve been able to have these opportunities, and I took control over my aging and I took control over my voice and how I consider myself as a woman. And I’m so happy that I’m able to collaborate with filmmakers and producers and people in this industry that want that for women, that want women to be ageless and who don’t fetishize women’s youth. And so it’s interesting. It’s really interesting.
Saldaña's Multiple Big Franchise Roles Explained
Saldaña's tenure with big franchises goes back as far as 2003, when she appeared as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. However, she only appeared in the first film, with her other franchise roles coming later. In 2009, she starred in both J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot as Uhura and in James Cameron's Avatar. Star Trek spawned two sequels, 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness and 2016's Star Trek Beyond, both of which featured Saldaña, with a fourth film currently in development. Avatar would go on to become the highest-grossing movie of all time and is finally set to release a sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, this December. The Avatar franchise also has another three sequels planned, with one of them already completely shot and in post-production.
Many audiences also likely know Saldaña from James Gunn's 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy, in which she portrayed Thanos' deadly daughter Gamora. She returned for the sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, in 2017, with the trilogy-ending Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 due for release next year. Her time with the Guardians grew further when they met Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which were massively successful hits that continued Marvel's stellar track record.
What Saldaña Has Done Outside Of MCU, Star Trek & Avatar
Even with her prominence in large franchises, Saldaña has carved out an eclectic career, working in drama, comedy, and even being an action star in her own right. She has been in comedies like Death at a Funeral (2010) and Missing Link, while also showing her dramatic chops in Out of the Furnace, Infinitely Polar Bear, and I Kill Giants. And while fans of Avatar and the MCU know Saldaña can carry her own when it comes to action, she has starred in several movies of the genre, like The Losers, Colombiana, and The Adam Project. So, while Saldaña has more than made her mark on Hollywood with big-budget franchises, she has a wide variety of projects in her filmography, something that these latest comments indicate should only continue in the years to come.
Source: Women's Wear Daily