Zoe Saldana is one rockin’ villain or is she in Marvel’s about to be big hit Guardians of the Galaxy. I have been a fan of Ms. Saldana from her previous roles in Drumline, Avatar and of course, Captain Uhura in the Star Trek reboots. She plays strong and smart women which I appreciate as the daughter of 11 year old tween girl. In her latest incarnation, she plays Gamora, kidnapped as child form an alien world and raised by the mysterious Thanos to become the world’s deadliest assassin.
When she arrived at the Guardians of the Galaxy Press Junket, she was just the opposite of her tough rockin movie persona, commanding yes, but dressed like a beautiful ballerina. Sadly, there are no full length pictures of her but trust me, she was just a delight in a cream-colored ballerina -type skirt, accompanying body suit and delicate sweater that looked perfect on her small frame.
At the start of the interview, Ms. Saldana was quite adamant about being picky about the roles she chooses because it’s important to her that there are strong women on screen that girls can look up, wishing “there more women like Angelina Jolie, Jessica Biel, Zoe Bell, who have stepped up.
That is pretty evident from her choices which I think as a young actress and certainly an actress of color, it takes a strong determination to go down that route not to play the goofy, idiotic girlfriend or eye candy in a movie.
Ms. Saldana spoke about wanting her character to be relevant and that she wasn’t happy about the script from Gamorah’ point of view who was in every scene but doesn’t speak in any of them. She was not interested in spending hours in make up, 6 days a week to watch the guys cracking jokes. After speaking to Director James Gunn who was on the same page with Zoe on the character told her that the script would change. And she was happy to take the leap of faith because Gunn was true to his word. She admitted that this wasn’t always the case where she has flown to the other side of the world, being promised that the script would change and then be stuck with the same script and a signed contract.
As lover of all the Marvel movies, it was great to hear that even Marvel and Disney are huge movie making studios that not only are they interested in supporting their actors they actually do. As Zoe intimated, that she wanted “to have faith in the studios” again” and “Marvel and Disney were great with this movie.”
So the big questions, did she do her own stunts? She did about 50% of the stunts with her stunt double Chloe doing the heavy lifting. She laughed that after being told, we want you to jump from here to there, 3-4 stories high, she said, “No, let Chloe do it.” I would agree with that decision, too.
The interview with Ms. Saldana was really a joy and she felt the same about us at the end remarking, “Thank you guys, you guys are awesome” clapping for us. Doesn’t get any better than that when the talent claps for a room full of bloggers.
Guardians of the Galaxy Gamora Featurette
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY opens in theaters on August 1st!
Website and Mobile site: marvel.com/guardians
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Disclosure: NYC Single Mom was provided with a trip to the Los Angeles for a Disney, Marvel, DreamWorks ABC Family hosted press event. Opinions are 100% my own.#GuardiansOfTheGalaxyEvent, #100FootJourneyEvent, #ABCFamilyEvent
