{"id":37023,"date":"2026-08-10T19:14:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37023"},"modified":"2026-08-10T19:14:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:14:35","slug":"zoe-saldana-talks-at-locarno-about-james-cameronher-wrong-shaped-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37023","title":{"rendered":"Zoe Salda\u00f1a Talks at Locarno About James Cameron,Her Wrong-Shaped Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/zoe-saldana-2\/\" id=\"auto-tag_zoe-saldana-2\" data-tag=\"zoe-saldana-2\">Zoe Salda\u00f1a<\/a> has starred in blockbusting franchises \u201cStar Trek,\u201d \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/avatar\/\" id=\"auto-tag_avatar\" data-tag=\"avatar\">Avatar<\/a>,\u201d has won an Oscar for \u201cEmilia Perez\u201d and holds the crown as the actor whose films have earned the most money ever. So what comes next?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cI have a feeling that I can only watch other people\u2019s direction for so long until I kind of say: \u2018Give me that camera!\u2019\u201d Salda\u00f1a told an audience at <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/locarno-film-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_locarno-film-festival\" data-tag=\"locarno-film-festival\">Locarno Film Festival<\/a> in Switzerland. \u201cBecause women, we all think that we\u2019re right because we are half the time. So I would like to prove myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHaving received a Special Honorary Pardo from festival director Giona Nazzaro, Salda\u00f1a engaged in a lively conversation which ranged from her upbringing in New York and Dominican Republic to her current and future acting roles in the third season of Taylor Sheridan\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/lioness\/\" id=\"auto-tag_lioness\" data-tag=\"lioness\">Lioness<\/a>\u201d and the upcoming fourth entry in the \u201cAvatar\u201d franchise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOf her childhood she described the cultural clash of moving from the U..S to the DR: \u201cIt was quite difficult for us to be torn from a New York kind of culture where you get to meet the world in your block. That\u2019s rich to grow up in a culture like that. And then I went to a small island where it\u2019s very homogenous and it\u2019s one religion, one form of being, and though the growing pains were big, so was the growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSalda\u00f1a initially trained as a ballet dancer, but was undone by having the \u201cwrong-shaped feet\u201d: \u201cYou have to have the right bridge. And only Russian women are born with this blessing. That\u2019s what you\u2019re told your whole life.\u201d However, her training taught her discipline and her experience as an outsider gave her a particular empathy for the roles she was later to play in science fiction films. \u201cI feel like I have more than enough experience of feeling isolated and othered. And so maybe that\u2019s why when I look at a character like a woman like Neyteri or a woman like Gamora, I feel like I can put so much more into them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHaving first broken through to audiences on \u201cLaw and Order,\u201d she credits her manager Rick Yorn with a recent return to television in the mini-series \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby\u201d and Taylor Sheridan\u2019s \u201cLioness,\u201d which has just premiered its third season: \u201cRick brought over \u201cLioness\u201d and compelled me to talk to Taylor Sheridan,\u201d she says. \u201cGood storytelling can live anywhere. Can live also in a small budget film or large scale film. Can be on Netflix, Paramount+, or can also be on the West End, off-off-off-off Broadway side of it. It can live anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHer C.V. includes the biggest names in the industry such as <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/james-cameron\/\" id=\"auto-tag_james-cameron\" data-tag=\"james-cameron\">James Cameron<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/steven-spielberg\/\" id=\"auto-tag_steven-spielberg\" data-tag=\"steven-spielberg\">Steven Spielberg<\/a> and Gore Verbinski. What was the common trait among them?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThey have looked me in the eyes, and I really felt they saw an artist, and they didn\u2019t just see all these hyphenated things that I also am. They saw me as an artist that is equal to a man, to another woman, to a white person, to a black person, to a disabled person, they just saw me, and they saw what I was able to bring the character that they had conceived to life. To also accentuate a complement to all of these people, I do believe that they all possess a level of inclusivity that they unconsciously live by, based on their core values, and to know that I share core values with someone like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron is amazing for me, because it means that I\u2019m striving for the right things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOther people don\u2019t always live up to this standard: \u201cOne thing that\u2019s incredibly limiting, and frustrating, is when I\u2019m the only person of color or the only woman on stage, and that happens quite a lot for women and for people of color, and I wait for my turn to be asked a question about my craft, and I\u2019m asked the political question: \u2018What do you think we need to do to make films more inclusive?\u2019 I\u2019m sorry, you don\u2019t ask the only person that comes from the marginalized community. You ask the other eighty of them that are part of the gatekeepers, and you ask them that they know the answer because I think that we\u2019re making people of color work double to be in a room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOf James Cameron with whom she has made three \u201cAvatars\u201d and is anticipating working on a fourth, she says: \u201cThis man\u2019s storytelling spoke to me when I was seven years old. I knew that when he wrote and conceived \u201cThe Terminator,\u201d that he was tapping into something incredibly human and foreseeable, and I was seven. The purpose that he gave a woman like Sarah Connor, at my tender age of seven, spoke volumes to me, and I wanted to be her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tA lesser known director she worked with was her husband Marco Perego with whom she made the 2023 film \u201cAbsence of Eden,\u201d a cross-border tale of human trafficking, immigration and ICE which has only increased in relevance: \u201cMarco had the idea when our governments were changing in 2016. We found ourselves \u2013 me as a first-generation American, and my husband as an immigrant who had just gained his citizenship in the U.S.. We were welcoming a family while witnessing families being torn apart due to immigration laws that were shifting, and what really affected us was the inhumane way upon which people were treated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tShe also teased the project she hoped to develop, a family drama based in the post-war era in San Francisco in which a traumatized war veteran and his wife who suspects her husband is homosexual: \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a film with that theme told through the lens of a family of color. So, if no one else is doing it, then one day I would love to be the director to tell a story like that. And it can very well be a Chinese-American family. It can be a Latino American family, but it has to be a family of color, something that we have never seen before. A \u201cFar from Heaven,\u201d but with a family of color that we\u2019ve never seen before. I think it\u2019s important. I think these communities need that. I think queer communities of color need that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<em>This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zoe Salda\u00f1a has starred in blockbusting franchises \u201cStar Trek,\u201d \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy\u201d and \u201cAvatar,\u201d has won an Oscar for \u201cEmilia Perez\u201d and holds the crown as the actor whose films have earned the most money ever. So what comes next?\u00a0 \u201cI have a feeling that I can only watch other people\u2019s direction for so&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Zoe-Saldana.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}