Director and Photographer: NINO MUÑOZ
Zoe Saldana may have mastered holding
her breath underwater for five minutes but,
as the Avatar star tells Emily Cronin,
her real superpower is self-belief
S
FASHION: TOP AND TROUSERS, SCHIAPARELLI; EARRINGS: KHIRY; RING, SALDANA’S OWN.
BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE PREP & SET GLOW MIST AND LE 9 DE GIVENCHY, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
risks take place on a different level. A deeper level. As in, 30ft below the surface.
“Inside I was dying, having the worst panic attack ever,” she says, recalling her reaction when director James Cameron told her he intended to film most of the second Avatar film underwater. “But there was another part of me that said, ‘Why not? I’m curious. I’m excited to do something I’ve never done before’.”
SHARE THIS STORY
DIRECTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER: NINO MUÑOZ
EDITOR IN CHIEF: ANDREA THOMPSON
SHOOT AND FILM DIRECTOR: LISA OXENHAM
WRITER: EMILY CRONIN
SENIOR ART EDITOR: ANA OSPINA
CHIEF SUB-EDITOR: NICOLA MOYNE
PRODUCER: SOFIA PIZA
MAKE-UP ARTIST: KATE SYNNOTT, USING GIVENCHY BEAUTY
STYLIST: KATIE MOSSMAN
HAIR STYLIST: MARA ROSZAK
NAIL ARTIST: EMI KUDO
SET DESIGNER: ISAAC AARON
SET ASSISTANT: MATT BANISTER
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: MARTY RUSH
EDITS: KALIVS
DIGITAL TECHNICIAN: BENOIST LECHEVALLIER
COLOUR GRADE: MAX GRADES
VIDEO INTERVIEWER: TOMER RONEN
VIDEO PRODUCTION: ONE TEN MEDIA
PHOTO ASSISTANTS: KURT MANGUM, WILLIAM MATHIEU AND GUI CHA
STYLING ASSISTANTS: MELINETTE RODRIGUEZ AND JILL ROTH
LOCATION: STROPA STUDIOS, LOS ANGELES
ome people tiptoe through life, watchful for any misstep that could lead to peril. Others can’t help but push against their own cautionary instincts, constantly asking themselves “What’s the worst that could happen?”. Speaking with Zoe Saldana, you get the feeling that the actress falls firmly in the latter– albeit one whose greatest
Saldana, with her dancer’s silhouette and regal posture (the kind that reads as solemn until she cackles), is a woman perhaps more familiar as her characters than herself, with famed roles including communications officer Nyota Uhura in the current Star Trek series; the green-skinned assassin Gamora, who appears in numerous Marvel Cinematic Universe films; and, most recently, Neytiri, the Pandoran princess in Avatar: The Way of Water.
Much has been made of the cast’s underwater training (Saldana learned to hold her breath for up to five minutes) as well as the 13-year gap between the release dates of Avatar and its sequel. “Look, we lived our lives in that time,” says Saldana, who points out that she married Italian artist Marco Perego and welcomed three sons (Cyrus, Bowie and Zen) during that period – all of which helped to bring new nuance to Neytiri, also now a mother. “Just having a family; there was a level of fear I experienced after becoming a parent – the fear of the unimaginable that every parent has. I had the sense that Neytiri was going through the same kind of experience.”
“There was a level of fear I experienced after becoming a parent – the fear of the unimaginable that every parent has”
The role required Saldana to “dust off all those cobwebs” essential to the character – archery, horseback riding, martial arts, running, jumping, and moving with the fluidity and grace of a three-metre-tall Na’vi. “You have to walk with a certain height; you have to be able to get your knees strong again. Mortality’s a bitch. The level of stamina that I had seven years prior was there, but not to the degree that it used to be. It took time, but I know that my body can give back if I pace it, so I paced myself, and I regained all that knowledge. It was quite amazing,” she says.
The fact that Saldana was still smoking cigarettes at the time was problematic though, so she quit for good almost immediately after initiating training. “It felt good to breathe; to fully take a breath; to challenge myself and find out that my body was capable of doing so much more.”
FASHION: JACKET AND TROUSERS, ROKH; RINGS, TIFFANY & CO. BEAUTY: VOLUME DISTURBIA AND PRISME LIBRE BLUSH IN ORGANZA SIENNE, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“It felt good to breathe; to fully take a breath; to challenge myself and find out that my body was capable of doing so much more”
However, in the end, the film’s intensive training proved as crucial for her psychological strength as the physical performance. “When I put in the work, when I am organised, when I manage my time, when I push myself, when I’m consistently disciplined – that makes me feel strong. Directors can tell when actors do their homework and when they’re pushing themselves. And they can tell when they’re not. So it feels really good when you’re seen because you’re doing the work.”
Indeed, Saldana has been putting in the work for decades. An American born in New Jersey, she grew up between Queens, New York and the Dominican Republic, where her mother moved her brood of three girls after Saldana’s father died. She was only nine years old at the time, and the early loss made childhood bittersweet. “Everything that should have been super-colourful and bright became grey. I learnt about the fragility of life early,” she admits. Moving to a new country also meant navigating school and a new social life in her second language, which proved a struggle, and she became “obsessed” with ballet, finding release and structure through dance. “It just felt so good to be on stage, to emote through motion,” Saldana adds.
FASHION: TOP AND TROUSERS, SCHIAPARELLI; EARRINGS: KHIRY; RING, SALDANA’S OWN. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE PREP & SET GLOW MIST AND LE 9 DE GIVENCHY, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“I would get feedback that they’d decided to go ‘traditional’ with the casting. I’m pretty sure the internal conversations were that they didn’t want to go Black; they didn’t want to go ethnic”
Ballet couldn’t have provided a better foundation for her breakthrough role, too, which struck in 2000 with Center Stage. After that came Get Over It with Kirsten Dunst and Mila Kunis, Crossroads alongside Britney Spears, then the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and The Terminal. “It was always a gradual ascension – step by step. I never felt like I had exploded, which was good.
“I wasn’t one of those artists that was like, ‘Oh, I’ve gotta make it.’ I always wondered, ‘What is ‘it’?’ You’ve got to define what that ‘it’ is and, for me, my ‘it’ was to be on a journey of discovery; to live my life as an artist.”
In Center Stage Saldana played Eva Rodriguez, a technically brilliant dancer whose attitude led the leaders of the fictional American Ballet Academy to pass her over for major opportunities – until another dancer’s change of heart offers offers her a big break. The unspoken factor in that storyline was race – Rodriguez was the sole ballerina of colour at the ABA. As steadily as Saldana has worked, she says she’s certain that racism and sexism also played a role in her early career. “I went out for great projects. Sometimes I would go as far as meeting the director. And then I would get feedback that they’d decided to go ‘traditional’ with the casting. I’m pretty sure the internal conversations were that they didn’t want to go Black; they didn’t want to go ethnic.”
FASHION: DRESS, KHAITE; EARRINGS, MISHO. BEAUTY: LE SOIN NOIR CREME YEUX AND LE ROUGE IN BEIGE NU, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
Sometimes she permitted herself “to sulk and feel the unfairness”. But, for the most part, “I didn’t sweat it… I realised early on in my career that I don’t have to be seen by everybody. I just want to be seen by those who truly see who I am.”
The thing is, she probably has been seen by everybody. Or nearly everybody. Thanks to her roles in the Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar films, Saldana is the only actor to have starred in three of the five movies to have ever grossed $2 billion or more. Is that vindicating? “It definitely proved that if you believe in yourself and what you’re doing, and you give 120 percent, then these possibilities [can] happen,” she says, adding that she only became a bankable action star once she had embraced her sense of self as an outsider – and surrounded herself with very good company.
“I learned that I should only surround myself with people who think like I do. People like Steven Spielberg [who directed her in The Terminal], James Cameron [Avatar], JJ Abrams [Star Trek] and James Gunn [Guardians of the Galaxy] are individuals who’ve probably had their share of feeling like outcasts. Science fiction provided a blank canvas where they could reinvent themselves and imagine the unimaginable. Well, guess what: I was the same way. And they saw me the same way I saw them.”
FASHION: TOP AND TROUSERS, SCHIAPARELLI; EARRINGS: KHIRY; RING, SALDANA’S OWN. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE PREP & SET GLOW MIST AND LE 9 DE GIVENCHY, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
Saldana credits her strong, resilient single mother for equipping her and her sisters with this self-respect and confidence; now she and Perego strive to teach their sons similar core values – with a 2020s update. “I want my sons to be tapped into their emotions and be able to speak about their feelings freely,” she says. Indeed, after growing up in a household of four women, it doesn’t escape her that she’s surrounded by four males. Cy, eight, is a sensitive soul (“he’s an artist like his dad”) who adores disco music, while his twin brother Bowie plays the drums and just took up golf. Zen, aged six, meanwhile, is determined to catch up to his older brothers. She’s proud when they’re able to name their feelings, saying they’re jealous or, as happened with Bowie recently, asking for a punching bag as a safe way to release anger. “We always tell them to have feelings and that whatever they feel is OK – it’s what you do with them that matters,” she says. “But look, they’re animals, too. There’s a dent in the refrigerator door from someone’s head – I don’t know whose; they pee all over the place. It’s a boy house.
FASHION: DRESS, CHLOÉ; EARRINGS, MISHO. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE BLUSH IN ORGANZA SIENNE AND PRISME LIBRE POWDER IN POPELINE MIMOSA, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“I want my sons to be tapped into their emotions and be able to speak about their feelings freely”
“Raising boys feels like a huge responsibility. But I do feel like there’s a lot of raising that our boys are doing [for] Marco and I, too. We’re guiding them as best we can.”
As a result, family life is “nomadic”, with Perego and the boys travelling to join Saldana on every film set. “Our mantra is, we move home wherever we go.” Routines create a sense of stability – when Cy started piano lessons in Atlanta, he continued even once they moved on to Baltimore, the Cayman Islands and Italy. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s what we decided was best for our children and ourselves.” So is time as a couple; Perego joined her on the recent Avatar world tour, and the two take care to carve out pockets of calm amid the chaos together (like fitting in the Marie Claire cover interview between returning from Tokyo and slipping into a Schiaparelli couture dress for the Los Angeles premiere). “Even if we’re just in New York for 15 hours, we’ll hit up a gallery, we’ll go to the movies, we’ll have dinner. We are not that couple that waits to go on vacation to see each other.”
Their vacations aren’t typical either – in fact, Saldana has a habit of bringing her work home with her. Early in the production of Avatar: The Way of Water, her twins began taking swimming lessons. “I guess unconsciously I was teaching them some of the same breathing exercises I practised. And they were off. They’re kind of half-fish now.
FASHION: TOP AND SKIRT, VICTORIA BECKHAM; RING, SALDANA’S OWN.BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE SKIN-CARING GLOW FOUNDATION IN 6-N405 AND 5-N335, AND LIP LINER IN ROSE MUTIN, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“You know, being an island person,” she continues, “I come from generations of indigenous people that grew up around water, and it’s an uneasy relationship. We’ve been told, through folklore and nursery rhymes, that the ocean can betray you if you’re not cautious. There’s an inherited fear.” She pauses, and you can almost imagine her poised on the edge of the deep-water tank for the first time – about to plunge – panic, pride and determination coursing through her. “I’m really happy that I didn’t pass down that fear. I passed down confidence. It’s good to know that we can do it, we can be safe – beyond anything I could have imagined.”
“I realised early on in my career that I don’t have to be seen by everybody. I just want to be seen by those who truly see who I am”
Zoe Saldana may have mastered holding her breath underwater for five minutes but, as the Avatar star tells Emily Cronin, her real superpower is self-belief
DIRECTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER: YU TSAI
Some people tiptoe through life, watchful for any misstep that could lead to peril. Others can’t help but push against their own cautionary instincts, constantly asking themselves “What’s the worst that could happen?”. Speaking with Zoe Saldana, you get the feeling that the actress falls firmly in the latter group – albeit one whose greatest risks take place on a different level. A deeper level. As in, 30ft below the surface.
“Inside I was dying, having the worst panic attack ever,” she says, recalling her reaction when director James Cameron told her he intended to film most of the second Avatar film underwater. “But there was another part of me that said, ‘Why not? I’m curious. I’m excited to do something I’ve never done before’.”
FASHION: TOP AND TROUSERS, SCHIAPARELLI; EARRINGS: KHIRY; RING, SALDANA’S OWN. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE PREP & SET GLOW MIST AND LE 9 DE GIVENCHY, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
Saldana, with her dancer’s silhouette and regal posture (the kind that reads as solemn until she cackles), is a woman perhaps more familiar as her characters than herself, with famed roles including communications officer Nyota Uhura in the current Star Trek series; the green-skinned assassin Gamora, who appears in numerous Marvel Cinematic Universe films; and, most recently, Neytiri, the Pandoran princess in Avatar: The Way of Water.
Much has been made of the cast’s underwater training (Saldana learned to hold her breath for up to five minutes) as well as the 13-year gap between the release dates of Avatar and its sequel. “Look, we lived our lives in that time,” says Saldana, who points out that she married Italian artist Marco Perego and welcomed three sons (Cyrus, Bowie and Zen) during that period – all of which helped to bring new nuance to Neytiri, also now a mother. “Just having a family; there was a level of fear I experienced after becoming a parent – the fear of the unimaginable that every parent has. I had the sense that Neytiri was going through the same kind of experience.”
“There was a level of fear I experienced after becoming a parent – the fear of the unimaginable that every parent has”
The role required Saldana to “dust off all those cobwebs” essential to the character – archery, horseback riding, martial arts, running, jumping, and moving with the fluidity and grace of a three-metre-tall Na’vi. “You have to walk with a certain height; you have to be able to get your knees strong again. Mortality’s a bitch. The level of stamina that I had seven years prior was there, but not to the degree that it used to be. It took time, but I know that my body can give back if I pace it, so I paced myself, and I regained all that knowledge. It was quite amazing,” she says.
The fact that Saldana was still smoking cigarettes at the time was problematic though, so she quit for good almost immediately after initiating training. “It felt good to breathe; to fully take a breath; to challenge myself and find out that my body was capable of doing so much more.”
FASHION: JACKET AND TROUSERS, ROKH; RINGS, TIFFANY & CO. BEAUTY: VOLUME DISTURBIA AND PRISME LIBRE BLUSH IN ORGANZA SIENNE, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“It felt good to breathe; to fully take a breath; to challenge myself and find out that my body was capable of doing so much more”
However, in the end, the film’s intensive training proved as crucial for her psychological strength as the physical performance. “When I put in the work, when I am organised, when I manage my time, when I push myself, when I’m consistently disciplined – that makes me feel strong. Directors can tell when actors do their homework and when they’re pushing themselves. And they can tell when they’re not. So it feels really good when you’re seen because you’re doing the work.”
Indeed, Saldana has been putting in the work for decades. An American born in New Jersey, she grew up between Queens, New York and the Dominican Republic, where her mother moved her brood of three girls after Saldana’s father died. She was only nine years old at the time, and the early loss made childhood bittersweet. “Everything that should have been super-colourful and bright became grey. I learnt about the fragility of life early,” she admits. Moving to a new country also meant navigating school and a new social life in her second language, which proved a struggle, and she became “obsessed” with ballet, finding release and structure through dance. “It just felt so good to be on stage, to emote through motion,” Saldana adds.
FASHION: TOP AND TROUSERS, SCHIAPARELLI; EARRINGS: KHIRY; RING, SALDANA’S OWN. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE PREP & SET GLOW MIST AND LE 9 DE GIVENCHY, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“I would get feedback that they’d decided to go ‘traditional’ with the casting. I’m pretty sure the internal conversations were that they didn’t want to go Black; they didn’t want to go ethnic”
Ballet couldn’t have provided a better foundation for her breakthrough role, too, which struck in 2000 with Center Stage. After that came Get Over It with Kirsten Dunst and Mila Kunis, Crossroads alongside Britney Spears, then the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and The Terminal. “It was always a gradual ascension – step by step. I never felt like I had exploded, which was good.
“I wasn’t one of those artists that was like, ‘Oh, I’ve gotta make it.’ I always wondered, ‘What is ‘it’?’ You’ve got to define what that ‘it’ is and, for me, my ‘it’ was to be on a journey of discovery; to live my life as an artist.”
In Center Stage Saldana played Eva Rodriguez, a technically brilliant dancer whose attitude led the leaders of the fictional American Ballet Academy to pass her over for major opportunities – until another dancer’s change of heart offers offers her a big break. The unspoken factor in that storyline was race – Rodriguez was the sole ballerina of colour at the ABA. As steadily as Saldana has worked, she says she’s certain that racism and sexism also played a role in her early career. “I went out for great projects. Sometimes I would go as far as meeting the director. And then I would get feedback that they’d decided to go ‘traditional’ with the casting. I’m pretty sure the internal conversations were that they didn’t want to go Black; they didn’t want to go ethnic.”
FASHION: DRESS, KHAITE; EARRINGS, MISHO. BEAUTY: LE SOIN NOIR CREME YEUX AND LE ROUGE IN BEIGE NU, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
Sometimes she permitted herself “to sulk and feel the unfairness”. But, for the most part, “I didn’t sweat it… I realised early on in my career that I don’t have to be seen by everybody. I just want to be seen by those who truly see who I am.”
The thing is, she probably has been seen by everybody. Or nearly everybody. Thanks to her roles in the Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar films, Saldana is the only actor to have starred in three of the five movies to have ever grossed $2 billion or more. Is that vindicating? “It definitely proved that if you believe in yourself and what you’re doing, and you give 120 percent, then these possibilities [can] happen,” she says, adding that she only became a bankable action star once she had embraced her sense of self as an outsider – and surrounded herself with very good company.
“I learned that I should only surround myself with people who think like I do. People like Steven Spielberg [who directed her in The Terminal], James Cameron [Avatar], JJ Abrams [Star Trek] and James Gunn [Guardians of the Galaxy] are individuals who’ve probably had their share of feeling like outcasts. Science fiction provided a blank canvas where they could reinvent themselves and imagine the unimaginable. Well, guess what: I was the same way. And they saw me the same way I saw them.”
FASHION: FASHION: TOP AND TROUSERS, SCHIAPARELLI; EARRINGS: KHIRY; RING, SALDANA’S OWN. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE PREP & SET GLOW MIST AND LE 9 DE GIVENCHY, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
Saldana credits her strong, resilient single mother for equipping her and her sisters with this self-respect and confidence; now she and Perego strive to teach their sons similar core values – with a 2020s update. “I want my sons to be tapped into their emotions and be able to speak about their feelings freely,” she says. Indeed, after growing up in a household of four women, it doesn’t escape her that she’s surrounded by four males. Cy, eight, is a sensitive soul (“he’s an artist like his dad”) who adores disco music, while his twin brother Bowie plays the drums and just took up golf. Zen, aged six, meanwhile, is determined to catch up to his older brothers. She’s proud when they’re able to name their feelings, saying they’re jealous or, as happened with Bowie recently, asking for a punching bag as a safe way to release anger. “We always tell them to have feelings and that whatever they feel is OK – it’s what you do with them that matters,” she says. “But look, they’re animals, too. There’s a dent in the refrigerator door from someone’s head – I don’t know whose; they pee all over the place. It’s a boy house.
FASHION: DRESS, CHLOÉ; EARRINGS, MISHO. BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE BLUSH IN ORGANZA SIENNE AND PRISME LIBRE POWDER IN POPELINE MIMOSA, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“I want my sons to be tapped into their emotions and be able to speak about their feelings freely”
“Raising boys feels like a huge responsibility. But I do feel like there’s a lot of raising that our boys are doing [for] Marco and I, too. We’re guiding them as best we can.”
As a result, family life is “nomadic”, with Perego and the boys travelling to join Saldana on every film set. “Our mantra is, we move home wherever we go.” Routines create a sense of stability – when Cy started piano lessons in Atlanta, he continued even once they moved on to Baltimore, the Cayman Islands and Italy. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s what we decided was best for our children and ourselves.” So is time as a couple; Perego joined her on the recent Avatar world tour, and the two take care to carve out pockets of calm amid the chaos together (like fitting in the Marie Claire cover interview between returning from Tokyo and slipping into a Schiaparelli couture dress for the Los Angeles premiere). “Even if we’re just in New York for 15 hours, we’ll hit up a gallery, we’ll go to the movies, we’ll have dinner. We are not that couple that waits to go on vacation to see each other.”
Their vacations aren’t typical either – in fact, Saldana has a habit of bringing her work home with her. Early in the production of Avatar: The Way of Water, her twins began taking swimming lessons. “I guess unconsciously I was teaching them some of the same breathing exercises I practised. And they were off. They’re kind of half-fish now.
FASHION: TOP AND SKIRT, VICTORIA BECKHAM; RING, SALDANA’S OWN.BEAUTY: PRISME LIBRE SKIN-CARING GLOW FOUNDATION IN 6-N405 AND 5-N335, AND LIP LINER IN ROSE MUTIN, GIVENCHY BEAUTY
“You know, being an island person,” she continues, “I come from generations of indigenous people that grew up around water, and it’s an uneasy relationship. We’ve been told, through folklore and nursery rhymes, that the ocean can betray you if you’re not cautious. There’s an inherited fear.” She pauses, and you can almost imagine her poised on the edge of the deep-water tank for the first time – about to plunge – panic, pride and determination coursing through her. “I’m really happy that I didn’t pass down that fear. I passed down confidence. It’s good to know that we can do it, we can be safe – beyond anything I could have imagined.”
“I realised early on in my career that I don’t have to be seen by everybody. I just want to be seen by those who truly see who I am”