Zoe Saldana was almost unrecognizable as a blue Na’vi princess within the “Avatar” franchise, and wore inexperienced make-up to play the reformed murderer Gamora within the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies.
But within the psychedelic narco-musical “Emilia Perez,” for which she received an Oscar on Sunday, the performer of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent spoke, sang and even rapped in her native Spanish — absolutely inhabiting her personal Afro-Latina pores and skin.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” mentioned the 46-year-old Saldana, who swept by means of awards season earlier than taking the Academy Award for greatest supporting actress.
“I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award. And I know I will not be the last.”
Saldana bested a crowded discipline that included Ariana Grande (“Wicked”), Isabella Rossellini (“Conclave”), Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”) and Felicity Jones (“The Brutalist”).
In “Emilia Perez,” Saldana performs Rita, an underappreciated Mexican lawyer. Her life radically adjustments when she is contacted by a drug lord searching for to faux his personal dying in order that he can bear gender-affirming surgical procedure and dwell as a girl.
That girl (Karla Sofia Gascon) is the title character, who initially leaves behind a spouse (Selena Gomez) and two kids to embrace her new id however in the end brings them again into her life — with tragic penalties.
Rita rapidly is caught in the midst of the drama.
Saldana — who has formal dance coaching — enjoys her massive second within the movie when Rita raps and dances to “El Mal,” revealing the secrets and techniques of Mexico’s elites at a charity dinner hosted by Perez, who turns into an activist for victims of drug crime.
Late final 12 months, she informed Elle journal that “the opportunity never really came” for her to behave in Spanish earlier than French director Jacques Audiard rewrote the function — supposed for a person of Mexican descent — to suit Saldana’s background.
Saldana was born on June 19, 1978 to a Dominican father and a Dominican-Puerto Rican mom in New Jersey. Raised bilingual in New York, she moved to the Dominican Republic after her father died when she was 9 years previous.
It was there that she began to review dance, particularly ballet.
Saldana returned to New York to complete highschool and appeared in some youth theater productions.
After doing an episode of the tv sequence “Law & Order,” she landed her first movie function in 2000’s “Center Stage,” taking part in a ballet scholar.
Just a few years later, she had a supporting function within the massively profitable “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” which led to different small roles.
But Saldana’s massive break got here in 2009 when she starred in James Cameron’s sci-fi epic “Avatar,” the top-grossing movie of all time. That similar 12 months, she joined a reboot of the “Star Trek” franchise as Lieutenant Uhura.
Five years after that, Saldana discovered herself as Gamora in Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” sequence, which spawned roles in two “Avengers” movies.
Her place as a bankable franchise star was safe, however Saldana informed Elle she needed extra.
“I was very much like, ‘Well, that’s okay, I’m going to dance to the beat of my own drum and I’ll go to space and I’ll be green and I’ll be blue and I’ll do all those things.’ Then 15 years go by, and I’m yearning for that reconnection,” she mentioned.
And alongside got here Audiard.
“When I had this woman in front of me, a determined woman in her 40s with a strong past, (I realized) I had gotten the casting wrong. I realized my characters were too young! They needed to be older,” Audiard informed The Hollywood Reporter.
The function was an enormous departure for Saldana, after starring in 4 movies that every made greater than $2 billion on the worldwide field workplace — two “Avatar” movies and two “Avengers” films.
Her marketing campaign for Oscars glory was disrupted by controversy surrounding previous tweets from Gascon, feedback which Saldana mentioned had made her “really sad.”
A month earlier than the gala, Audiard mentioned Gascon was “hurting others,” and that he would proceed to “champion” Saldana’s work.
A married mom of three, her upcoming initiatives embrace the Disney/Pixar space-themed animated mission “Elio,” due for launch in June, and a brand new “Avatar” installment due out in December.
© 2025 AFP