Love these quotes from actor Zoe Saldana in Complex magazine.
You’re playing a black ops soldier in the adaptation of the graphic novel The Losers, out in April. Do you enjoy roles that require you to run around and shoot a gun?
Zoe Saldana: Like you wouldn’t believe. It turns me on in a way that I shouldn’t be saying. It’s not the guns that turn me on, though–it’s seeing women in a commanding position. It’s boring to always play the victim. [In sobbing victim's voice] “Rape me! I’ll have your child!” Eff that! Why don’t you have my baby and wait at home while I go kill some motherfuckers? [Laughs.]
…So what sort of roles won’t you play?
Zoe Saldana: I have a hard time accepting roles that typecast a culture. I don’t need to play Juana, the prostitute from Washington Heights, in every movie. If it’s been done before, you don’t need my help. Latinos, we’re not all pimps or prostitutes, we don’t all deal drugs; not everyone in Jamaica smokes weed; not every Middle Easterner is a terrorist. It’s boring, offensive, and hurtful. I’m not bitter about it, I’m just saying that I would like to retain accuracy of certain cultures.
11 Comments
Honestly I think she is so average but she is the go-to token presence POC for movies these days.
No way! I thought her performance in Avatar was fabulous.
I loved watching her movies but I’m going to love it even more now that I know she’s AWESOME in real life too!
Aw, that’s too bad. I loved her in Center Stage …even if she was one of the few who didn’t actually dance… And if you haven’t seen that movie, you should.
They’re adapting “The Losers”? Awesome!
I think Saldana’s on the cusp of becoming huge, and a role like Aisha may put her over the top. I wasn’t particularly keen on her character in Avatar (though I think Cameron is mostly to blame for that), but Zoe Saldana could be a kick-ass Aisha.
What a refreshing interview to read. it warms my heart to hear such sentiments. i cant wait to see more of her work.
As much as I’d like to feel good about this interview, I am still slightly perturbed about a recent one she gave about Avatar to the E! channel (I think; maybe it was Entertainment Tonight or some other run-of-the-mill entertainment show….)
Specifically, she was describing her confusion during a discussion with James Cameron over the special effects that were to be used in Avatar. She said she couldn’t quite grasp what JC was talking about “because you know, we’re girls.”
Oh yes, honey. Not because this was a somewhat new venture for James Cameron OR perhaps the most special effects-saturated film you had been involved in to date, but because you’re a girl and your ladybrain simply cannot handle these special effects conversations.
Le sigh.
Plus, if Avatar wasn’t typecasting cultures, I’m really not sure what is.
“I have a hard time accepting roles that typecast a culture.”
And yet she played Avatar’s cliched noble savage/mystical native Pocahontas character?
facepalm
“I have a hard time accepting roles that typecast a culture…Latinos, we’re not all pimps or prostitutes, we don’t all deal drugs; not everyone in Jamaica smokes weed; not every Middle Easterner is a terrorist. It’s boring, offensive, and hurtful. ”
But Then she Does accept a role in James Cameron’s Avatar where she plays a futuristic characture of Native Americans, complete with stereotypes (dress, war cries, etc.).
Isn’t her statement a bit hypocritical?
Personally, Avatar was pretty. But there were so many isms ( racism, sexism, ableism) that it just became unbearable. Come on, it even had the “white savior” combined with the giving up of his disabled body for a new genetically engineered body complete with “working” legs. As a disabled man that just made me shake my head in disgust.
In fairness, she said she ‘had a hard time accepting’ not ‘couldn’t accept’ or ‘wouldn’t accept’ Maybe she did have a hard time accepting it. *shrug*