London.- The queen of the world movie box office has a first and last name: Zoe Saldaña.
Avatar (2 thousand 922 million dollars), Avengers: Endgame (2 thousand 797 million) and Avengers: Infinity War (2 thousand 48 million), three of the five most successful films of all time, carry the credit and talent of the actress.
With 1.397 million dollars until last weekend, Avatar: El Camino del Agua, another example of his grossing filmography, is already the 14th highest grossing film in history.
Being a Latina woman and holding such honors in Hollywood is a source of pride for the daughter of a Puerto Rican father and Dominican mother, who was discovered by agents while doing youth theater in New York.
“It means everything. If I can give a message with this (of being part of the highest grossing films) it is that anyone who feels out of place must believe in what they love and give their best,” he meditates in an interview.
One of his greatest satisfactions, he adds, is having become an icon for fantasy, superhero and science fiction films, genres that some actors view with disdain.
“I truly believe that the universe finds you and aligns you with the right people who are looking for the same thing as you. Then you find a community that you identify with. I have never felt more protected than when I am around geeks who accept the geek within them,” he adds.
An action hero, Saldaña is famous worldwide for her roles as Gamora, an alien warrior from the Marvel universe, and Neytiri, another extraterrestrial beast, in the Avatar story.
When he agreed to interpret those characters, he accepted, he felt a hunch, and precisely in this way, due to emotional reactions, he is guided to accept or reject projects.
“Perhaps I have something in common with Neyriti, which is that I don’t think about things too much, I just feel them. That sometimes brings me great results, but other times not so much.”
A mother of three, Saldaña credits her ability to do scenes with weapons or hand-to-hand combat to her training as a ballet dancer in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
“I think that’s why I’ve been able to succeed in these stories. I enjoy doing my own stunts, looking back and thinking: did I really do that?
“I remember my childhood and doing physical things. Playing with boys, with my friends and boys can innocently be cruel and tell you that you can’t do something because you’re a girl. But what started as an attempt to prove to boys that they were wrong, it ended with me internalizing that I can do everything if I prepare myself”.
He does not sing badly in Na’Vi
El Camino del Agua, his new adventure on the planet Pandora, was a challenge for Saldaña in many aspects, including having to sing.
The actress interprets the song “Song Chord” in the film and does so in Na’Vi, the language developed by linguists for the first film in the James Cameron franchise, in 2009.
Although she had sung in movies like Nina, a biopic about Nina Simone, and The Book of Life, this time was intimidating and, at the same time, incomparable.
“When they told me about this, I thought it would be three lines, but no, it’s a whole song. And I’m: ‘Wait, I can’t do this. What is this?’ And the director: ‘You’ll be fine.’
“It seemed extremely difficult, but I sat down with James and we talked about the character so much that I forgot who I was and I was transported to Pandora, I started to feel like I was from there. Yes, recording the song was very emotional.”
