Zoe Saldaña Wants To Break Free Of Big Action Franchises Like Marvel

TV & Film

Dec 29

Zoe Saldaña is now part of three of this generation's major film franchises. She's portrayed Lt. Nyota Uhura in Star Trek and its sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. In 2009, using motion capture, Saldaña brought to life her avatar in the film of the same name. Thirteen years later, she's Neytiri again in Avatar: The Way of Water. Then there's the role people will remember her for. In five MCU films, she is Gamora. These aren't resumé fillers. This is an A-lister's filmography.

She's portrayed starfaring explorers and heroes who have traveled the galaxies and an extraterrestrial, each one memorable. So, yes, she's found her niche, but actors will view this as being typecasted and limiting their range. Zoe Saldaña now feels she's reached that point where she'd like to exchange her alien guises for more terrestrial roles.

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While promoting Avatar: The Way of Water she voiced out her sentiment admitting:

"I feel that for the last 10 years of my life, I've been just stuck. I felt stuck doing these franchises. 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."

She has since clarified her statements in an interview with Deadline, expressing gratitude for having been part of these franchises:

"I feel grateful and like the luckiest girl in this town knowing that I was invited to join films with special directors in a special cast. And they resonated with people so much so that we get a chance to come back again and come back another time. If anything, I've reaped all the benefits of that, I've gained friends. I still have mentors that I call and I lean into.

But...I think that once I started my family, it just became really hard for me to sustain both worlds and also then cater to this curiosity of playing other different characters or playing earthlings."

She recently traded her motion capture suit and heavy makeup for less makeup and a sort of earthly costume in the sci-fi comedy The Adam Project. It's safe to assume she's slowly stepping away from the MCU even if she starred with two of her MCU colleagues.

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