Escape [room] with us and our Triple-A, Zoe Saldaña. The Universal Language, Scientists, Animals & Children, The Volume, and gelato every day. To your point, welcome in… it’s an all-new SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Chapter 1: What is the cold open of this episode?
So, hello. This is a cold open to our upcoming episode of SmartList.
The cold open is, Jason, the cold open is... This is where we do a little bit of banter. Have we prepared anything? We've prepared nothing.
Can we just get a suggestion from the audience? That would be great.
Bananas! Okay, so bananas is the prompt. It makes me think of... What it makes me think of... Breakfast? Breakfast. Welcome to SmartList.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Chapter 2: What are the hosts' thoughts on escape rooms?
Anything you'd like to say to the listening world?
I did go recently with me and Scotty and two other friends to an escape room. And it was, have you ever been? Is it inside your house?
Well, you know why I haven't been? Because you know who went to an escape room this weekend? Nash for his seventh birthday.
I couldn't get in. There were too many seventh graders in there.
You know what else Nash is into? Lightsabers. That's right. Star Wars.
But let me tell you, but I like the problem solving of escape rooms.
Do you have a mirror close by? I need you to look in the mirror right now. I need you to fucking have a conversation with yourself right now and say, fuck it, dude, I blew it.
Have you ever done it?
You blew it!
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Chapter 3: What is SmartList Presents Clueless?
Why are we saying in? Just say welcome. If you feel the need to say, just say welcome.
Right. Two that I have that I don't like is because I watch a lot of football now, as you know. Have a day. Have a day. Well, I said this the other day. When all the announcers always go, we got some play action. They like just saying play action. Just say they have the ball or whatever they're doing.
I brought that up to our friend that we did the show with, JB. I brought that up to Peyton Manning last week.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I brought up that I said that you hated that they overuse play action.
Play action, yeah. And then when you're on a flight, they go, stewardess, cross-check, cross-check and something. Cross-check.
Cross-check. Is the door secure or not? Yeah.
Why don't you just check the door? You know what I'm glad they're not saying much anymore is touch base.
Yeah. Let me touch base.
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Chapter 4: How did Zoe Saldaña start her acting career?
Are you so happy with it? By the way, it's in my notes to get to at the end of this interview, but we're talking about it now. You, including three of your co-stars, won the award in Cannes for best performances, right? It's pretty outstanding. I can't wait to see this. Because on paper, I was reading the description.
It was like singing and dancing and this and that and other storylines that I want to give away, but like... It sounds incredible.
Yeah, and there's like danger and like a robbery or something too, right? Or like, I mean, it's got everything.
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.
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
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.
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah.
How was that there? Was it just like all like the pomp and circumstance of that festival and it was just like glamorous and fantastic all the way through it? It must have been amazing.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Zoe face growing up?
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.
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.
Oh, wow.
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.
And what a gamble for James at the time or for anybody to stick a woman in the lead with that much power and strength.
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?
Yeah, yeah.
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.
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.
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