Zoe Saldana Once Shared She Was Bothered by Being Told She Played ‘Strong Female Characters’

Actor Zoe Saldana is known for her portrayal of playing complex heroes and anti-heroes in several action films.

But although she’s no stranger to playing tough roles, she’s not a fan of the strong female character label.

Zoe Saldana felt a void when it came to female characters on the big screen

As a fan of films growing up, Saldana noticed there was something missing in most of the movies she adored. In the action genre in particular, there weren’t many female heroines she could look up to on screen. The Avatar star could only find a handful of women in the genre that she admired.

“Growing up, when I was little, I only had two icons that I can reference, and I would watch those movies until my tape would break,” Saldana once said in an interview with Honey and Lime. “And it was Ellen Ripley from Aliens, and it was Sarah Connor from Terminator.”

Soon actor Jamie Lee Curtis became an inspiration for Saldana with Curtis’ work in films by filmmakers like Katherine Bigelow. The action films she enjoyed, however, were still overwhelmingly male-driven.

“But other than that, I was always like, watching action movies told through the eyes of males,” she continued. “But always feeling that gap, that void, you know?”

Zoe Saldana didn’t like being told she played strong female characters

Becoming a star herself, Saldana has felt great pride in helping fill in that void with her own career choices. Movies like James Cameron’s Avatar have seen Saldana step into the kinds of roles she used to admire.

“Maybe it is important that I’m a part of those women that are filling in that gap, so that women can have more options, more references to look into,” she said.

At the same time, however, Saldana didn’t agree with boxing all of her roles as strong female characters. She felt it was a rather broad term that didn’t truly describe the roles she played.

“It bothers me that I’m always told that I do strong female characters. When in reality, I look at my characters and I feel like they were all broken,” she said in an interview with Den of Geek. “They all came from a very devastating past. They were trying to achieve something, they had hope, and they wanted to get someplace, like everything other character that has a meaningful and relevant arc in the story.”

To Saldana, the overuse of the term pointed towards a misunderstanding of women in general.

“We don’t write women accurately. We don’t see women the way that we should see women as a society, as a human race. When you see a real woman, you shouldn’t be saying she’s strong, you should be saying she’s real,” she said.

Zoe Saldana has felt creatively stuck doing franchises

Saldana might have inspired many through her portrayals of complicated characters in some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises. But there has been a creative drawback for the star in doing so. Speaking to WWD, the Marvel star confided that she felt stuck in these franchise films for the past decade.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunities that they provided, from collaborating with amazing directors and getting to meet cast members that I consider friends and getting to play a role that fans, especially children, love,” she said. “But it also meant that I felt artistically stuck in my craft of not being able to expand or grow or challenge myself by playing different sorts of genres and different roles.”