Zoe Saldana is living the dream lately.
She has been storming through Awards Season with her role as Rita in Emilia Perez, showing off singing, dancing, and dramatic skills and winning a Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and yesterday the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress. This weekend she is up for two SAG Awards, and then it is on to the Oscars where she is a betting favorite to take Supporting Actress.
Concurrently she is also starring in the TV series, Lioness as CIA operative Jo, and could well turn up at the Emmys for that (!)
Saldana is also the queen of the franchises with her films overall making more than $14 billion, 4 of them over $2 billion each, and 3 of then in the top 3 grossing movies of all time. She joins me today for this episode of my Deadline video series, The Actor’s Side where we talk about her remarkable career to date.
On Avatar where she plays Neytiri, she previews the third installment, Avatar: Fire & Ash which she confirms is the most emotional one yet for her character. She says she signed up for the planned five films at age 28 and likely won’t wrap them up until she is 54. I also ask about Star Trek where she has appeared as Lt. Uhura in three films and get the scoop on plans for a fourth go round. She promises however she is now done playing Gamora in the MCU’s Guardians Of The Galaxy series of three films (plus two Avengers blockbusters) she did there. She even talks about an earlier franchise, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl. It is safe to say if/when she hits the Oscar stage on March 2 she would be the highest grossing winner – man or woman – of all time.
We discuss all of this, the gift of Emilia Perez, plus working in the Taylor Sheridan universe on Lioness, and much much more. To watch our conversation and to get the ‘actor’s side’ of things from Zoe Saldana just click on the link above.