Like her Star Trek shipmate Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana has appeared in a truly mind-boggling number of franchise blockbusters, which include the top three highest-grossing movies of all time. She’s best-known for her starring roles as Uhura in the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, Neytiri in the Avatar movies and Gamora in the MCU. But the first franchise movie that Saldana ever appeared in was actually Pirates of the Caribbean.
In a recent interview with Buzzfeed UK, Saldana said that she didn’t particularly enjoy being ‘part of the machine’ that was the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is surprising given the number of Disney movie blockbusters she has appeared in since. She did say that it’s a “great movie” but also that it was “a hard production, it was just so big, too big of a machine for me, and too out of control.”
Saldana says that she’s proud of what transpired on screen, but “how difficult it was to get there – I don’t ever want to go back.” She added that she’s happy that she wasn’t invited back for the sequels, as there “was a lot of politics that I would have had to navigate, and I just felt really lost and very small in that big machine…for me it was definitely an experience not worth repeating.”
Considering that Saldana returned for two Star Trek sequels, appeared in five MCU movies, and has signed up for multiple Avatar sequels (which won’t be over until she’s in her 50s, if James Cameron has his way), it’s surprising to hear her speak in these terms about Pirates.
Zoe Saldana is currently starring in Special Ops: Lioness, which is part of the ever-expanding Taylor Sheridan TV universe. We don’t know where he finds the time.
Check out our guides to the MCU movies, ranked, the Avatar 2 cast, the best Star Trek characters, and to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.