Zoe Saldana’s Killer Instinct
by Josh Eells
Zoe Saldana sexed up the Starship Enterprise, then a planet called Pandora. Call that her blue period. In her next role, she’s red-hot as a stone-cold, ass-kicking, lollipop-sucking assassin. Works for us
Zoe Saldana was out dancing the other night when a fight broke out one table over. Her companions scattered; she stayed put. “I knew exactly what I was going to do,” she says. “Kick this door, grab this, move that guy out of the way. Then I started laughing: Oh, my God, I still have Cataleya in my system.”
Cataleya Restrepo is the lethally sexy hit woman in Saldana’s latest gig, Colombiana. For the film—in which her character avenges her parents’ murders with machine guns, explosives, and, memorably, a toothbrush—she underwent combat training with the stuntman who turned Matt Damon into Jason Bourne. This was fresh off her turn as a mercenary in The Losers and before that as a Pandoran in Avatar, for which she mastered archery and Wushu. All of which has made her the ass-kickingest female star since Angelina Jolie. Like Jolie, Saldana’s physicality— all fluid angles and long lines—is part of what makes her so much fun to watch; before the bad guys are finished staring, they’re already dead.
Saldana’s action roots run deep. The actress, 33, grew up partly in the Dominican Republic, where she learned to climb mango trees and gut fresh-caught fish. She remembers herself as “a feminine tomboy. I had my plastic swords, my ninja stars—but I still wore lipstick.”
Saldana spent a decade wasted in sidekick parts until 2009′s Star Trek and her xenolinguistics expert, Uhura. (Saldana herself speaks four languages—five if you count Na’vi.) Next year she’ll trade the martial arts for a couple of marital dramas, though don’t expect any doting wives: “It gets pretty boring when all you are is the support system for a male character,” she says. “I want to be in the small percentage of women who don’t settle for conventional roles.” Shouldn’t be a problem with that roundhouse.
One Response to “ GQ – September 2011 & Photoshoot Update ”
Date: Aug 17th, 2011
Time: 03:49:51
Hey just to let you guys know… Zoe Saldana was featured in today’s story on Who What Wear. Come check it out!
http://www.whowhatwear.com/website/full-article/how-they-wear-jumpsuits-2112/
Reply to “ GQ – September 2011 & Photoshoot Update ”