She found true fulfillment with the audacious Emilia Pérez after years of franchises and a lifetime of anxiety.
You know Zoe Saldaña's work. You've seen her as the deadly warrior Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy films and/or the blue Na'vi Neytiri in the Avatar movies and/or the strong-willed communications officer Uhura in the Star Trek franchise. She's one of the highest grossing actresses of all time, with her movies earning more than $15 billion worldwide. But this year, this sci-fi queen shed the extraterrestrial makeup and intergalactic travel for a riveting, and much more vulnerable performance in Jacques Audiard's audacious crime musical Emilia Pérez.
Saldaña plays Rita Moro Castro, an overworked attorney who is recruited by a cartel boss who wants to fake his death so he can live as a woman. She delivers a fearless performance that showcases her signature physicality (she was a dancer growing up in New York and the Dominican Republic), as she dances and sings her way through the Spanish-language film. Her work earned her and her costars -- Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz -- the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in May. "When we heard all of our names called out, it was definitely one of those surreal experiences that I wouldn't be able to [replay it in my mind] if I tried," she says. "It happened in the moment. I was so present."
Saldaña, who is married to Italian artist Marco Perego with whom she has three sons, couldn't pick up the award in person because she was in Texas filming the second season of her Paramount+ TV series, Lioness. But it was just the first of many accolades coming her way as she forgoes CGI-worlds and sci-fi makeup in a journey back to her roots. We're thrilled to have Saldaña as part of our 2025 Hollywood Issue. Here are excerpts from a conversation.
Vanity Fair: How were you approached about Emilia Pérez? I imagine on paper it's a pretty bold and risky project to take on, exploring a trans story through a musical.
Zoe Saldaña: They described the film to me as a crime musical that was going to be in Spanish, and it was going to have elements of drama and noir and comedy. You just say yes to all of that because all you hear and all you want to hear is "Jacques Audiard." I've been a fan of his work since I was very young. I remember, just as a New Yorker, I would just go to the Angelika or the Sunshine Theaters and buy my big-ass latte and just sit there and watch his movie. But what I loved about how he was describing the movie to me -- it just felt provocative, audacious, original, and operatic, of course. It's very dramatic. It's almost like a novella.
Obviously, I was concerned at first, but only for a nanosecond. We're living in an era where everybody tends to be immediately persecuted in the court of public opinion. How is this not going to get lost? How is this going to really land? Because it feels important. And Jacques was always like, "We don't worry about that. You just tell the story. And you are loyal to the truth." And I trusted that.