Zoe Saldaña ‘Needed’ Her Gamora Character to Be ‘Pretty’ in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
Marvel star Zoe Saldaña admitted she had a few odd concerns when portraying Guardians of the Galaxy member Gamora. After nabbing the part, she couldn’t help think about how attractive she would’ve looked as the alien.
Zoe Saldaña wanted teenage boys to find her attractive in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
The part of Gamora was perhaps as close to a guarantee for Saldaña as there had ever been. In the documentary The Making of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, director James Gunn revealed that Saldana was his first choice for the character. And she was the only actor Gunn had in mind for the beginning that ended up playing the desired character.
“When I first went to Marvel and I pitched Guardians of the Galaxy, I brought a little book,” Gunn said. “I had worked very hard trying to put this little book together of all the little pictures and photo references, and all that stuff. And in that book, there were all the characters listed and who I thought should play those characters. And of course, none of those actors who were in that book ended up playing the characters, except for Zoe Saldaña, who I met and loved from the beginning.”
After Saldaña was officially cast as the character, she had to undergo hours in a make-up chair to transform into Gamora. But one of the initial concerns she had before her transformation was that she might not have been attractive in the role.
“What I was thinking was, ‘She just needs to be pretty,’” she told Pop Sugar. “That’s usually a thing that I don’t think about with other characters, but because I was going to be green and I was going to be the lead girl, I just wanted teenage boys to find me attractive. I don’t know why I was stressing that a lot. Everybody else was just like, ‘Contacts, do we dye the hair, wig no wig, what color hair, how long is it.’ I’m like, ‘Pretty.’ Teenage boys, please, we gotta get their vote.”
What Zoe Saldana felt about being typecast as an alien
Gamora wasn’t the only alien that Saldaña played in a hit sci-fi franchise. In 2009, she had a starring role in James Cameron’s Avatar as the alien Neytiri. Similarly, she would also be portraying a warrior from a different planet with a unique skin color. Saldaña was aware of the coincidence, but she didn’t really mind being known for the sci-fi features.
“To me, it’s no different of a concern than Cate Blanchett and Keira Knightley have because they just do primarily period pieces,” she said. “I like working with filmmakers who have the balls to imagine the unimaginable. Those are kind of like the radicals that I identify with. Also by playing an alien, I avoid playing someone’s girlfriend here on Earth, because that’s a bit of a canker sore.”
She also noted there were some stark differences between her Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy characters.
“When it came to Gamora, my approach was very different than the one I had with Neytiri. Here, because it’s sort of a dark comedy, we’re kind of like The Rolling Stones of the whole Marvel universe. We’re like the ones that always failed in class, but for some reason, we can burn the house down, and I like that,” she said.
Why Zoe Saldana wouldn’t be upset about not returning to ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy’ franchise
Saldaña’s portrayal of Gamora went beyond just the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. She had starring roles in both Avengers: Infinity War and End Game. She also recently revisited her role for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. But after the last Guardians, her future in the franchise remains a bit unclear. Even Saldaña isn’t sure if Vol. 3 was her last Marvel film, but there are reasons she wouldn’t be upset if it was.
“I can never say no to anything, but that green makeup? I wouldn’t be upset if it didn’t happen again,” Saldaña told Variety not too long ago. “I miss Gamora but I don’t miss 3:30 a.m. calls and five-hour makeup sessions and trips to the dermatologist afterwards.”
