Zoe Saldana Biography

Zoe Saldana is a trained dancer who's become a leading actress in Hollywood, having starred in blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek and Avatar.

IN THESE GROUPS

• FAMOUS PEOPLE IN FILM
• FAMOUS MODELS
• AFRICAN-AMERICAN BIOPICS
• FAMOUS PEOPLE NAMED SALDANA

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QUOTES

“I got so much out of being a dancer. The stillness of it. The discipline. The dedication.”

—Zoe Saldana

Synopsis

Born on June 19, 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey, and partly raised in the Dominican Republic, the bilingual Zoe Saldana started her acting career in films like Crossroads, Drumline, The Terminal and Pirates of the Caribbean. After years of diverse work, in 2009 she landed leading roles in the blockbusters Star Trek and Avatar. She's also been a model for Avon, the Gap and Calvin Klein.

Early Life

Born in Passaic, New Jersey on June 19, 1978, Zoe Saldana grew up in Queens to a mixed ethnic heritage, with her mother being of Puerto Rican descent and her father hailing from the Dominican Republic. At the age of 9, her father died in a car accident, and her mother subsequently moved Saldana and her two sisters Cisely and Mariel to the Dominican Republic, where they lived with their grandparents.

The three siblings grew up very close while Saldana studied a variety of dance forms at ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy, developing a particular fondness for ballet. She moved back to New York at 17 and continued dancing while also joining Faces, a teen-oriented theater group, and the New York Youth Theater, through which she was discovered by a talent agent.

Acting Debut

Following a guest spot on Law & Order, Saldana made her movie acting debut appropriately enough with the dance drama Center Stage, which portrayed a group of ballet students training at an academy. She then snagged supporting roles over the following years in a diverse array of films. After being featured in the teen comedy Get Over It!, the Britney Spearsvehicle Crossroads and the hip-hop thriller Snipes, Saldana portrayed the captain of a dance team in the 2002 film Drumline. She then appeared in 2003 in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as Anamaria, a former lover of Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) who gives him a wallop for his roguish behavior. In 2004, she appeared in the drama The Terminal with Tom Hanks, as well as Haven.

During the mid-2000s, Saldana continued to act in a number of ensemble films, both commercial and indie, and appeared on TV with roles in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Six Degrees. In 2005, she starred in Guess Who, a comedic update of the Sidney Poitier and Spencer Tracy classicGuess Who's Coming to Dinner; the newer version switched the racial roles of the original, with Bernie Mac as Saldana's wary African-American father and Ashton Kutcher as her beleaguered white fiancé. She was also later featured in the 2008 thriller Vantage Point.

'Star Trek' and 'Avatar'

Two-thousand nine was a blockbuster year for Saldana's career. After the thriller The Skeptic, Saldana starred in the remake of Star Trek by directorJ.J. Abrams, in which she played Communications Officer Uhura. In December 2009, she starred as Neytiri, an alien warrior, in the 3D sci-fi epicAvatar, which would go on to become the world's highest-grossing film. Director James Cameron used performance capture technology to create Saldana's computer-generated character, driven by her bodily movements and facial expressions in a studio setting. Saldana spent months training for the athletic role, taking up horseback riding, archery and wushu martial arts.

The following year, Saldana starred in the ensemble comedic remake Death at a Funeral with Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, as well as two action capers—The Losers and Takers—and the comedic Burning Palms. In 2011, she landed the sole lead role in Colombiana, which featured Saldana as an assassin out to avenge the murder of her parents.

Another Hit With 'Guardians'

The year 2012 saw Saldana making news off-screen by rushing to the aid of a woman who was injured in a car crash. Later that year, The Words was released, a return to serious drama for the actress about a struggling writer, portrayed by Bradley Cooper, who plagiarizes another person's work. She's also co-directed episodes for The Rope, a web series developed by Vin Diesel about bouncers and the world of nightlife.

Saldana returned to the Star Trek franchise with the 2013 sequel Into Darkness. And the following year she added comic-book hero to her list of roles, portraying the green-skinned assassin Gamora in Marvel's well-received Guardians of the Galaxy, which broke August's domestic box office records for debut earnings. The project also co-starred Diesel and Cooper, among others. 

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Modeling Career

Outside of acting, Saldana has a strong interest in fashion. She has appeared in Calvin Klein lingerie commercials, in which she's performed monologues offering tidbits on vulnerability, mystery and strength. She's also appeared as a spokesperson for Avon, and modeled with her sisters in a Gap print ad andW magazine editorial. Saldana has appeared in many other magazines as well, including Elle, Vanity Fair, Latina, GQ Italia, Essence, Nylon and InStyle.

Personal Life

Saldana was reportedly romantically linked with Cooper after her relationship ended with longtime boyfriend, actor Keith Britton, with whom she partnered to found the website for My Fashion Database. In 2013, Saldana married Marco Perego and in 2014 the couple welcomed twins boys. 

Zoe Saldana

Saldana was born Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario[1] in Passaic, New Jersey.[2][3] Her father, Aridio Saldaña, was from the Dominican Republic, while her mother, Asalia Nazario, is from Puerto Rico. Saldana also has Haitian and Lebanese roots.[4][5] She has often spoken of her pride in her ethnicity, and has said: "It doesn't matter how much backlash I will get for it; I will honor and respect my black community because that's who I am."[6] The majority of her early childhood she spent growing up in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, and her native languages are both English and Spanish. She has two sisters, named Cisely and Mariel, and a half-brother named Nipo, known as "Nipo 809", who is a Dominican artist and producer.[7]

Her father died in a car crash when she was nine years old,[8] and Saldaña and her mother subsequently moved to the Dominican Republic. There, Saldaña discovered her love of dance and soon enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy; she studied various forms of dance [2][7][9][10] but describes ballet as her first passion.[7][11] She told Vanity Fair that she quit ballet because she did not have the feet and had too much pride and ambition to just be in the corps de ballet.[11] The family returned to New York after her sophomore year in high school.[11] In 1995, she began performing with the FACES theater group in Brooklyn,[12] which put on plays geared toward providing positive messages for teens via themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and adolescent sexuality. Concurrently, she performed with the New York Youth Theater; her appearance in their production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat led a talent agency to recruit her. Her previous dance training, and her acting experience, helped her land her first film role, playing Eva Rodriguez, the talented and headstrong ballet student in the film Center Stage (2000).[2][9]