Zoe Saldaña
Appearances
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Along with like Steven Spielberg. There were films that were very memorable to me when I was growing up because of the characters. Like Sarah Connor was this character that just spoke to me. She's just an Ellen Ripley. Ellen Ripley spoke to me. She was just this amazing woman that found ways to survive against these extraterrestrials that were looking to use her body, you know. As a host.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And for Steven Spielberg, you know, the E.T. man, the shark man, to then, you know, direct the color purple. And Whoopi Goldberg, this... Character became so, you know, when your little life is just bigger and brighter and more impactful. So I think that unconsciously I was tapping into art in the way that films were just taking me with them, you know?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And making, building a reality for me that was healing, that was medicinal, you know, when I needed it. Like, I was very much, I'm one of three girls, but I'm a solitary person. Like, you know, and maybe there's a little bit of I'm on the spectrum of some sort, I guess. But in the 80s, nobody really talked about that, you know. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
But my sisters are able to sustain relationships and with friends and function. And I was sort of like this loner, you know, that was protected by my sisters because sometimes I would annoy people because of whatever it was, you know. So art and storytelling became my go-to place.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
you know, reading books and science fiction and watching films and being these characters, you know, became really real to me. And it wasn't until, like, I was a teenager and I kept Clash. My dad died when I was nine.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I feel like Chunk from The Goonies, you know? Everything, everything. Okay, I'll try. That's great. But no, you know, my dad died and my sisters and I, we were eight, nine and 10. And that was like a big, you know, life-changing sort of event in our lives. And art became this healing sort of, you know, assistant to my mom and to us that really helped us.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
So they did, my sisters became, she painted and Cicely and I, my younger sister and I, we started dancing ballet. And that helped me sort of, it helped me just cope with shit. You know, because life is hard when you're little. Socializing, starting over in a new environment, different language, different people, different culture. Like that's always like a very big thing for kids. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Well, I have three boys, and one of my boys just lives on his own. He's like this lone little wolf, and I guess I feel kindred to him. Yes, I would do weird shit that my mom— And I think that my mom became an insomniac because of that because I would wake up in the middle of the night. I don't remember these things, by the way. Now she's just jokingly mentioning them.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And I'm just like, well, mom, that's some serious stuff. She goes, I know, I know. Like one time you just, I don't know if you were sleepwalking, you just turned on the hot water and you got in the tub and you burned yourself. Oh, jeez. It was like 2 o'clock in the morning, and she was just like, is my kid crazy? Like, am I not really addressing this? Like, is my kid off?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Like, I would turn on toasters or, like, you know, like, turn on the stove to boil an egg, but I wouldn't put water in the pot. I would just throw the eggs inside the pot. I guess she said, and at one point, you liked the way the eggs sounded when they broke inside the pot. Oh, that's interesting. And I was like, oh, how interesting. So I have a little one that does that.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Or just curious. Just a naturally curious child that probably needed a lot of verbal communication in order for me to understand my sensations. I was a sensory seeker. I was always like seeking things that catered to my ears and taste and my feelings. It's just sensory seeking, I guess.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I transitioned, I danced ballet for like 10 years and I realized that I couldn't break, I couldn't shatter my glass ceiling. I didn't have the feet. And that became a very just painful confession to tell yourself, you know? But then it was like transition. I love storytelling. I was able to tell stories with my body. So I was in this little theater company in the city.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And I was playing Mrs. Potiphar from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Musical. And there was a manager there.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
It's such a great musical. And there was a manager there, and she signed me. And I first started going to, like, I would book commercials. So my first gigs were doing, I did a Burger King commercial. Two for two or something. Just the two of us. And I remember, I got my SAG card from that commercial.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
It was, it was. And that's when I knew, I'm like, one, I didn't want to do commercials. I knew then. And I was like, I just want to act. I want to play characters. I want to tell stories. I want to be other people.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I like everything. I think, you know, that I'm going to answer the way you were expecting. But, you know... Avatar was really special in the sense that the way that we shoot it, I wish people can understand that the technology does not substitute the performances, it only supplements the performances. Totally.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And we go through months of training because it is, it's basically Jim paints, you know, those pixelated, you know, things.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
over what we do. So he's, it's not that we sit in a studio and we record like an animation. It's like all the work that you do is the work that you see, you know, on Avatar. And that form of acting is incredibly just exciting.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Yes. Okay. But it's not an animator that is guessing, right? You know, or estimating how you're moving. No, no, it is your performance because it's, they have these reference cameras.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
But they, but Jim has also created this like, you know, this, this, this gimbal of a camera.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
that is in Pandora. So when you're moving, there are all these big screens. Let me know if I lose you. When we're shooting, we're shooting in a set that we call the volume. And the reason why it's the volume is because all these cameras that are attached in the ceiling of our set are pointing all through this sort of square, this space that's called the volume.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
So once you're in and you have all these dots and you have to, you ROM yourself in, so they enter you into the system.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And you're wearing this helmet that has these cameras here that are also then registering every single muscle on your face. So they sync all of that information. And you then, once you enter the volume, you're in Pandora on real time. So you and I can be talking, standing in the volume.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And if we stare at the screens that he has all through the volume facing us, we're seeing ourselves as avatars in Pandora. where we're standing. So what he does is he documents everything. And his technicians, he works with people from Weta in New Zealand, and he has people from all over the world, but they're mainly here in Los Angeles.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And in New Zealand, they're just basically painting over what we're doing because it's already in the system. Does that make sense?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I think so. You kind of blew my mind there. I was like, oh my God, he's really taking it there. Yes, yes. If what you're saying is what I'm understanding, then yes.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Yes. Well, Jim has always said that putting a human being with an animation always felt...
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Unreal. It looks different. It's like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Remember how Zemeckis, it's Zemeckis, right? Yeah. George Lucas. Is it Zemeckis or Lucas that did Roger Rabbit?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Robert Zemeckis. Thank you. So these filmmakers have always been ahead of their time and they've always tried to sort of invent the technology that is able then to allow them to capture their vision. Jim is that same. I call them kind of scientists. Because they're inventing things that will later on down the line just evolve the way that we make films and the way that we view films, right?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
So for Jim, the challenge was to make a human being and an alien, an animated alien, look as if they were in the same medium. Yes. So that was his goal. And he achieved it with Avatar.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And yes, we finished three. So now they're just, you know, they have a year now to basically render all of the information that we shot, everything that we shot.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Well, I only play a Na'vi. I'm not an avatar. So ours is the shortest sort of shoot, and it takes anywhere between five to seven months to shoot. Wow. And then after that, then they go to New Zealand, and they spend a year there sometimes shooting live action, and they'll do the green screen, and then they'll assemble the whole thing in the same medium. Incredible. And that takes a lot of time.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
It's beautiful when actors collaborate with their filmmakers. And that was the very first time that I had an experience where I was cast very early on in the process of putting the Na'vi together. You know, in terms of how do they walk? How do they speak? How do they speak English with a Na'vi accent? All these things. And I was 27. And working with...
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
my childhood dream of a director, the Sarah Connor creator. And he was allowing me to collaborate with bringing the not V to life. So I was working with Cirque du Soleil performers and dialect people and stunt people. Like, how do they fight? How do they move? You know, that tail, it's kind of like an extra limb. It felt like going to school or college
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Being in a laboratory and conceiving a brand new organ, like, you know, life.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I like that you say start. That's really nice. For half of those projects, I was a part of them. But I do. I feel fortunate to know that I've been a part of great projects that appeal to massive audiences. It gives me a sensation of connection. I'm connecting with human beings that even though I will never, ever meet them,
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I'm connected to them somehow through the stories that impact them, that impact me by being a part of, you know. And, you know, I've always said this. It's not bad for, you know, a little brown girl from Queens.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I love animals and children. Two groups I love to work with. I think I would have gone into some form of psychology and working with children. There's something about... Just understanding children and really looking at them for who they are and not overestimating them or underestimating them. That will always be my goal. It's to sort of go, oh my God, where are you? Who are you? What are you?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And how can I reach you? It doesn't mean I'm the best mom, but I wake up every day and that's the only role that I want to pursue every day.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Oh, God, I love the American way of parenting when it's, you know, in the sense of there's this curiosity to always evolve and figure out better ways of communication with children. I love that. I love that. And this quest to verbally just, you know, create freedom where children can communicate their emotions and their feelings earlier and earlier. I love that about American ways of parenting.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And the Latino ways of parenting I love because it's all heart. It's very much heart. The child is allowed to be dramatic, right? and excessively dramatic. We talk about death. We normalize death. And we don't sterilize it. It's passion. There's a lot of passion and fire in the way that we raise children, Latinos. But things that I can live without is this, you respect your superiors.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Oh, my God. It's just gelato every day. Gelato every day. And, you know, it's a culture that's very, you know, it's very, I mean, Latinos and Italians are very similar. They're just affectionate. The fathers are very affectionate with their children. And I love that.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
That came from him. We get married. I had no intentions of changing my name, but we never discussed it. It was just, I just had it there. I'm like, in case the conversation comes up, I'm going to let him down slowly that I'm going to remain Zoe Saldana forever. And maybe throughout the years, if we earn it, then maybe I can take a perigo somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Are you sure? You should probably just do it, you know, in our personal lives, but keep your professional name, you know, as who you are. Society sometimes doesn't really understand. He goes, I don't give a shit. Like, I'm proud of your name. I love your father's name, you know?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
For him, it was... I mean, I get emotional. My father died when I was nine. And I've never... I mean, I have a wonderful stepdad that's been in our lives since I was 13. And he's my dad, you know. But my biological father, that bond, that connection to your blood was lost, abruptly lost very early on. So it's not something you ever heal from. It's just you learn to manage that pain of loss.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And when we... when we fell in love and we got married, he knows how strong of a presence my father still is in my life. Because as Latinos, we keep, we live with our dead. We live with them. We actively talk about them as if they're here, you know?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
No, no, no. It was a combination of both. Yeah, that's good. Very smart. We were still living in the States when he passed away. And, you know, back in the 80s, public schools in New York were incredible. They were just incredible. So immediately, as soon as we came back, From the funeral, they bombarded us with just love and support.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And for my mom as well, they, you know, they, my mom, you know, had places to go to and sort of cope with this and, you know, gain new tools on how to be like this single parent moving forward. And then when we went back to Dominican Republic, that was when we moved there then to live. Then it was very much like, no, we stick together. God will always find his way.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
So that had its good things and also bad things. And my mom did feel very isolated at times. when it came to just trying to talk to a professional. But the love and support was always abundant in our family, you know?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Well... He just, he's very Italian, and I, you know, I love the Italian culture, but I'm also, like, I'm keeping it at bay. You know what I mean? Like, it's a very romantic and seductive culture. So he meets you, and he's this, like, pirate-looking, probably the most handsomest man I'll ever meet in my life. Uh-huh. And I met him on a plane, but we knew each other.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
We knew of each other through mutual friends. And it was always like, oh, there's that guy. There's that really handsome, hot, motherfucking guy that I should always stay away from. Because he looks at you and he just has that suave look and everything. And when he talks to you, he had that little bitchy, you know, they kind of hide their real manly voice. And I'm like, why are you...
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Such a high-pitched voice when you talk to me. And I'm a New Yorker. I'm very much like, come on, man, talk to me. But he's gentle. My husband is a very gentle man.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I mean, we don't necessarily teach it. We just are. That's how we slip in and out of all these languages. That's so cool. And it's funny because I grew up as like a daughter of immigrants where you live a double life. You feel like you're like 007 where in your house you're like, hola, abuela, and you're very Latina. And the moment you step out, you kind of go, adios, hey!
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
You learn to code switch, right? And because they're so hard on you. You don't forget your culture. You don't forget where you come from. And it was very much like that. And I appreciate that today. And then I marry an immigrant who's very much about, I'm Italian, Italian forever. We're Italians. And so when the boys were little, they spoke only Italian and Spanish.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
But as soon as they start going to school and I start dialoguing with them, I go into what feels very, you know.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And we became very English-oriented in the way that we bond. And then that's when my husband's family, because our folks live here in the States, and my parents also live in California, they were just like, you need to talk to them. And I had to kind of have an intervention. I'm like, y'all need to chill. You guys all chose to come here. We're all here.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
They are American, as well as they are this and this. So share. I'm going to allow you guys to share.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
who we are inherently but they they don't force them because we're we're eating in italian and spanish we are dancing and we are communicating in it that's already enough it's go it's going to be there but don't force it to them because then they're going to reject it like i tried to reject it when i was little and they kind of like it was a nice intervention because even my husband had to sit him down like you need to like you know just lay off the gas a little bit
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And now they understand it fluently. They'll speak it with their grandparents. But with me, they speak mainly English. I do speak to them in Spanish a lot when we're in public, when I don't want people to know what I'm saying. And then my husband does the same.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
We started shooting early 2001. One, okay. It was before 9-11, I remember that.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I did, yes. I auditioned. I mean, I auditioned for Amelia Perez too. So it's, I mean, it was, but it's more like an interview. Like you just do a conversation. Yeah. I audition a lot. I remember I auditioned for a film that you were doing, Jason. Uh-oh. Years ago. I had nothing to do with it. No, no, it's okay. What was the one that you did about the funeral?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
It's awful. I hated that process. I really did because it really fed into my anxiety in a way that wasn't healthy. It just, you know, competition and anxiety. you know, fighting for, to prove who you are is so hard.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I do remember that if it wasn't for just warm people, amazing casting directors, like New York has amazing casting directors that were just human beings, you know, they were nice and gentle and, And I loved walking in and feeling like they were rooting for me. Whenever I would put myself on tape. Because remember, it was like, you have to put yourself on tape when you live in New York.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
That's what you got to do. And if it wasn't for the fact that people were nice, I would have never booked parts. It's when people are super cold and they were so despondent. And I would tank all those auditions. It doesn't help.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
They're talking about it and it would be nice. It would be nice for us to come back and sort of do a proper send off to the next generation. Look, I don't honestly, I wish I had like a formula. I feel like the only thing that I kept doing was saying yes.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
You know, it was just like if I was shooting Avatar and all of a sudden my agents at the time were calling me. It's like, well, J.J. Abrams really wants to meet you for Uhura. He's going to shoot this next Star Trek. I was like, who, what? I wasn't a Star Trek fan. My mom was. And I was like, oh, okay. You had me at JJ. I know. And I'm like, but I'm working.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And he's like, well, I think he's going to come to set. I'm like, oh, okay. Because I would go to the set of Avatar, and every day it's like, oh, there's Robert Zemeckis, there's Steven Spielberg, there's George Lucas. That's crazy. You know, they were always there. And Jim was giving them the whole walkthrough. So it was very normal for us to see these amazing filmmakers.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And Jim walks to set one day and goes, I have a surprise for you, and I think you're going to owe me for this one. And I was like, what is he talking about? And JJ was there. And JJ was like, hi, Zoe. And Jim, like, lets him, you know, touch the camera and do the whole tour. And then JJ's like, well, are you, I definitely want to meet you for Hora, for Star Trek. And then, you know, JJ left.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And Jim just comes over and goes, you're welcome. And I'm like, for what? I wasn't really tapping into it. And then I get the call, like, can you please play a horror? I was like, abso-fucking-lutely. Are you kidding me? Let me think about it. Yes. And then after that, it was just, and then after that, James Gunn comes over and, you know, years later goes, can you play Gamora?
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I'm like, yeah, of course. And I said yes, because I wanted to experience prosthetics.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Makeup, like waking up at 3 o'clock in the morning and going through the whole nutty professor transformation. I was like, I want to do that. And then a month in, I was like, I hate this.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I love art. I love the fact that people are always outside. I love to walk as a New Yorker. I just, I love to walk down the streets of ancient, ancient, you know, history. And I love eating and drinking wine. So it's just, it's really romantic. And there's something really nice about Paris, but also like when you go to Italy, because my second... Favorite place, Italy. And then it's the Caribbean.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I'm from the Caribbean. I love the beach. I love the water. But there's just something very free about Europe that in the summers, you see people in love, living in love in public. The universal language. And you'll see these younger couples, like on the Vespa, making out while you're like, you know... taking your kid for a walk.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
But then the same couple, you come back and they're in the same Vespa and she's slapping the crap out of him. And then all of a sudden he grabs her and shakes her and he kisses her. And you're like, fuck, that's so romantic and dramatic.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Me too, you guys. Thank you for this conversation. I've enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
First of all, it was exciting to listen to you guys talk. I was, like, mesmerized. We're just, like, in normal conversation.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I'll give you my email, and then you can... I'll forward it to Jacques. Actually, I'll give you Jacques Audiard's email. And you can send it to him. Google translated to French, though. He doesn't speak English.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Yes. Yes, we had... We had many interpreters and there were many languages spoken. It was Spanish and English and French and some Italian.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
I'm kind of, I was raised bilingual, but I'm kind of trilingual now because my husband's Italian.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Also, always figuring out whether or not he was hustling me. Because they're like, Italians are hustlers. Wait, wait, wait. It speaks flow. What is that? Right, right. No, but it was great. But Jacques is known for, you know, working outside of his language. This is not the first foreign film that he's done. He did a film called Deepan, which was with these Indian actors.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
And then he did a film years before called A Prophet. And that had some Arabic as well. He's not defied by language. He likes to kind of connect with human beings, you know, and challenge himself. And, you know, when it comes to whether or not they speak the same tongue, he just likes to find ways to communicate with people and connect with people.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Maybe, but here's the thing. I think as somebody that speaks – you know, different languages, but also understanding that English is a very distinct, you know, language. I feel like that exists mainly in English rather than like the romantic languages. It's more of a... It's more of a feeling than the words. I was going to say. It's hard to explain.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
We shot it summer of 2023. Okay. Oh, wow. From April to like July, and we wrapped right before the strike, like a couple of days before the strike.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
You know, it dabbles in so many different genres and it doesn't stay in one place. And I feel like that, that just feels fresh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all signed up to work with Jacques Audiard. I've been a fan of his work since I was a teenager. And he was, you know, one of those like top three directors in my bucket list that I thought would never happen. Right.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
When this opportunity came, it's like a niche of a niche movie. It's in Spanish. It's a musical. It centers around four women. The main character goes through a major transition, you know, trying to find herself. And everything about this felt dangerous and super risky, so it was totally aligned with
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
with what I want to do, with who I feel like I am, you know, and I want to reconnect with that part of me as an artist, I didn't think that it was going to be seen by many, many people. I just thought I was going to scratch something out of my bucket list and feel so happy that I collaborated with an amazing filmmaker. Gan was a surprise for us.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Yeah. Well, I mean, and he is, you know, he's a fan favorite. They're very proud of their own, you know. So Cannes was a wonderful festival to premiere Emilia. But I think it's the movie. I think this movie feels really important and it's audacious and it's provocative and it's a bit campy and melodramatic. And those are things that I think audiences are wanting to have a little bit more of.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Sometimes films can be so linear and that makes them a little... I don't know, cold, sterile, you know, stories sometimes can get really sterile when you try to do everything right.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
What if you throw everything away and you sort of go off script and you fall and you collaborate with your artists as opposed to sort of kind of being super stuck with a vision and this is the vision and this is the vision. Jacques sort of like... is very much a traditional director, but he's also a person that is yearning to connect with people, you know, through cinema.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
Otherwise, he would be locked up in his room, like, just reading. He's an avid reader, he's an intellectual mind, and he's a bit shy in social gathering. So cinema and storytelling is the way that he kind of connects with the world. And the way that he allows his artists and also every department to add to the story, it just felt like an experiment.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
It's funny. I'm a Gemini. I live a very absent-minded life. I don't make conscious decisions. I go with the flow. I knew what I didn't want to do.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
New York. I was born in New York. I was born in Jersey, but I don't like to say that. But because we're New Yorkers since 1961, like I'm a daughter of immigrants and my grandma arrived there in 1961 and we're like native New Yorkers, right? So in New York, partially. And then at the age of 10, we moved to the Caribbean. So we did sort of like the reverse migration.
SmartLess
"Zoe Saldaña"
We went back to where my family's from. And I did, you know, my formative years, like from 10 to 17, 10 to 18, I lived there. and then we returned back to New York. I think that the beginning of my bucket list happened unconsciously. I must have been like six or seven, and James Cameron was probably the first name there.