Zoe Saldana Threatened to Punch Former ‘X-Men’ Star for Disrobing in Front of Her Without Warning
Actor Zoe Saldana was caught off guard when filming a movie with X-Men alum James Marsden. The pair were doing a scene together when Marsden showed too much skin when Saldana least expected it.
Zoe Saldana yelled at former ‘X-Men’ star James Marsden for disrobing in front of her without warning
Zoe Saldana starred alongside X-Men’s former Cyclops in the comedy movie Death at a Funeral. The film was a black comedy that featured an ensemble cast, and was about dysfunctional family members coming together to bury a loved one. Saldana and Marsden both starred in the film as two young lovers engaged to be married.
While filming, however, Marsden disrobed at a point in the film Saldana wasn’t expecting. And the actor’s sudden nudity more than caught the actor off guard.
“The funniest thing that Jimmy did wasn’t so funny. He’s supposed to be naked on the rooftop and I open the window and go, ‘What are you doing, come back inside?’ He didn’t give me any warning that he had taken off his pants. So I just opened the window and saw a lot more of him than I was expecting, and I’m just trying not to look below his eyes,” Saldana once told Parade.
Afterwards, the Guardians of the Galaxy actor chastised Marsden a bit for the scene in question.
“’Warn me if you ever do that again or I’m going to punch you,’” Saldana remembered yelling at him. “And he’s like, ‘But you were such a lady. You never looked down.'”
Zoe Saldana made the director for her 2010 film ‘The Losers’ rewrite her nude scenes
Whereas Marsden seemed to have no problem disrobing for his feature with Saldana, Saldana once raised concerns for her own nude scenes. Saldana’s character was supposed to completely disrobe in the 2010 action movie The Losers.
But she wasn’t too receptive to the scene because she didn’t feel it fit any place in the action thriller. Saldana wasn’t shy about letting directors and producers know about her reservations on certain matters. So the actor brought her concerns straight to the director.
“The way that scene was written in the original script, my character was naked. I literally told the director, ‘If I am going to do this scene, there is no way I’m going to be nude because it just isn’t necessary or even believable,’” Saldana said.
The filmmaker eventually conceded to Saldana’s requests.
“So there was a negotiation and I ended up in my bra and panties. I don’t mind using my physical assets as a weapon, but there’s a limit,” she said.
Zoe Saldana has no problem doing graphic love scenes
It seems that Saldana may be more accommodating to do more graphic scenes if it made sense for a film. The Avatar actor felt sexuality in films was often looked at as too much of a taboo in America. In actuality, Saldana believed there were other subjects depicted on film that were far more harmful than graphic love scenes.
“I love sex. I love skin. I don’t believe the body is something to hide,” Saldana said in a 2010 interview with Essence (via OK!). “I think in American society we’re messing up our kids by taking away the education on and awareness of our sexuality and replacing it with violence, guns and video games-and we’re breeding little criminals.”
