Zoe Saldaña Opens Up About Painful Sacrifices She’s Made as Actress and Mother

Zoe Saldaña attends the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations event presenting "Emilia Perez" in Los Angeles on Nov. 19, 2024. Araya Doheny/Getty Images for SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Zoe Saldaña has had to make some tough decisions between her roles as an actress and a mother of three.

In an interview with Fox News, the 46-year-old, who stars in the Paramount+ spy thriller series “Lioness,” spoke about her journey trying to balance a successful Hollywood career and family life.

“I wish I knew how to balance it. You know, sometimes there are seasons in which I feel like I have a grip on it. And like, lately, because I’m promoting two wonderful projects that I’m really, really proud of, I’ve just been nonstop and on the road,” said Saldaña, who also stars in the new film “Emilia Pérez.”

“These are sacrifices that we all make as a family together, and it is painful.

“So all we can do is just manage that pain. And that’s always what I try to tell parents, fathers, and mothers especially, that they feel sort of torn all the time. Just manage being torn,” she said.

The “Avatar” star said that switching her word choice when speaking about her responsibilities as an actress allows her children to see things from a different perspective.

“It’s hard because you care about both things in your life, and you don’t want to let either things down, but you want to do it. I also always say remove the word have. You don’t have to do anything that keeps you away from your kids. If you want to do it and then share that experience with them because it’s a different level of understanding when they know that what I’m doing brings me happiness,” the actress said.

Family First

In October, Saldaña shared that she hopes to be more involved in directing films in the future. However, she is choosing to pursue that goal when her kids are older.

“When you direct—especially the kind of director that I am, and that I’ve witnessed all the directors that I’ve admired be—you live with a movie for years,” she said in an interview with Variety published in late October. “I just want to make sure that my kids are old enough where they don’t even notice that I’m gone.”

She said that she finds it “intolerable” to be away from her family while working. “I always walk around with a heavy heart every time I’m away from them. But I also have a heavy heart if I walk away from art and feel that I didn’t give my all,” she said.

Saldaña, who shares three children with her husband, Marco Perego Saldaña, looks forward to stepping out of her comfort zone, acknowledging that being vulnerable requires courage.

“Acknowledging that I’m scared, that I don’t want to stop growing, that I have so much more to learn. And that I want to work with many more filmmakers and do many more roles, different than the ones that I’ve done before,” she said, before adding that it has all been worth it. “There’s something that comes with maturity—which is wisdom. And wisdom sometimes means just being honest with yourself.”

Zoe Saldaña’s Career

Born on June 9, 1978, in Passaic, New Jersey, Zoe Saldaña made her film debut in the 2000 ballet drama “Center Stage,” followed by 2002’s “Crossroads,” alongside Britney Spears, 2003’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” and 2006’s “Premium.”

However, the actress got her biggest breakthrough in the sci-fi genre. In 2009, she appeared as communications officer Nyota Uhura in the “Star Trek” reboot. That same year, she played the indigenous hunter Neytiri in “Avatar,” which grossed $2.9 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of all time.

Saldaña won a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her performance in the CGI-based movie.

In 2014, Saldaña appeared in the Marvel film “Guardians of the Galaxy” as Gamora and reprised her role in 2017’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” and 2023’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” She also played Gamora in 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.”