Zoe Saldaña
Famous BisZoë Yadira Saldaña-Perego is an American Afro-Latina actress.
Zoe Saldaña’s acting career began with a guest role on Law & Order (1999) before making her film debut as a ballet dancer in Center Stage (2000). She gained attention with roles in Crossroads (2002) alongside Britney Spears and Drumline (2002) with Nick Cannon. In 2003, she played Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, marking her entry into major film franchises.
Her career skyrocketed in 2009 when she took on two iconic roles: Nyota Uhura in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot and Neytiri in James Cameron’s Avatar, the highest-grossing film at the time. She reprised both roles in sequels, including Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), which later surpassed the original’s box office record.
Beyond Avatar, Saldaña has become a staple in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Saldaña as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), a role she continued in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).
She also starred in the science fiction film The Adam Project (2022) and the romantic drama miniseries From Scratch (2022). In 2023, she took on the lead role of a CIA officer in the Paramount+ spy series Special Ops: Lioness.
In 2024, she starred in the musical crime film Emilia Pérez, for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Zoe Saldaña’s films have collectively grossed more than $15 billion worldwide, making her one of the highest-grossing actresses in history. In 2023, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In 2013, she began dating Italian artist Marco Perego, and they married in June 2013. The couple has three sons: twins Cy and Bowie, born in 2014, and Zen, born in 2017.
In an interview with W Magazine titled “Zoe Saldaña’s Celebrity Crushes Know No Gender”, Saldaña discussed her attraction to women, revealing that her first kiss was with a girl.
It was with a girl, I must have been 13 or 14. I was that girl who said, ‘Let’s play house,’ I was always telling my friends that. And that’s why I wasn’t invented to play at people’s houses! So I was already kissing a whole bunch of girls by the time I was 13, 14. Girls are such better kissers!
When asked about childhood celebrity crushes, Saldaña admitted,
Oh my god, I’m so shy about this… I did have a crush on Prince and Annie Lennox, I can’t believe I’m saying this! Because there was just something androgynous about them. I love a woman who’s masculine and a man who is feminine. I find that to be really sexy.
While Saldaña spoke openly about kissing girls and her attraction to androgynous figures, she refrained from labeling her sexuality. However, she has previously indicated an openness to dating women. In a 2013 Allure interview, she suggested she might “end up with a woman raising my children”, citing her androgynous nature. When Allure asked if this meant she was open to a female partner, she responded, “Yes, I was raised that open.” Regarding whether she had previously been in a relationship with a woman, Saldaña told Allure, “Promise me one thing… You’re going to ask this question — if you choose to, just put three dots as my response. That’s it.”