Zoe Saldaña is one of our best blockbuster actresses — and she’s got the receipts to prove it. In the last decade plus, she’s played Uhura in the rebooted “Star Trek” films, Neytiri in James Cameron’s “Avatar,” and Gamora in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No matter how natural or made-up her character appears, she brings her A-game. (No wonder she was disappointed that her “Avatar” part felt overlooked.)
Her first blockbuster was “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” which unexpectedly turned one of Disney’s most famous theme park rides into a successful movie. Saldaña plays Anamaria, a supporting character and a member of the pirate crew recruited by Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) on Tortuga. Anamaria introduces herself by slapping Captain Sparrow and yelling that he previously stole her ship, which he amends to “borrowed without permission.” (For all we know, Anamaria’s boat could be the sinking one we first saw Jack ride into Port Royal on.)
Despite that, Anamaria is the one who pronounces Jack as captain of the Black Pearl in the film’s final scene — and that’s the last we saw of her. Sequel “Dead Man’s Chest” got most of the original cast back (Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa even returned from the dead), but not Saldaña. Why?
Saldaña has said several times that she did not enjoy making “Pirates of the Caribbean” and so she was uninterested in going through that experience again. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter in 2014, she explained:
“Those weren’t the right people for me [on the ‘Pirates’ set]. I’m not talking about the cast. The cast was great. I’m talking about the political stuff that went on behind closed doors. It was a lot of above-the-line versus below-the-line, extras versus actors, producers versus PAs. It was very elitist. I almost quit the business. I was 23 years old, and I was like, “F— this!” I am never putting myself in this situation again. People disrespecting me because they look at my number on a call sheet and they think I’m not important. F— you.”
She recently credited her next movie, Steven Spielberg’s 2004 comedy “The Terminal,” as the experience that convinced her not to quit Hollywood. “If the studio and the producers and the director, they’re not leading with kindness and awareness and consideration, then that big of a production can become a really bad experience and you may tip overboard. And I kind of did,” Saldaña explained to Variety. “I worked with Steven Spielberg eight months later, and he restored my faith that big can also be great.”