Zoe Saldana is in the new issue of Marie Claire, promoting Guardians Of The Galaxy, and in the magazine, she insists that Hollywood give more time to stories about women.
Saldana tells the magazine:
“I would love to play Nefertiti or Cleopatra or the Queen of Sheba. We preserve more male history than we do female. We have to preserve it. No more complaining. We have to do it.”
While Saldana has caught flack for being cast as Nina Simone — including from Simone’s own family members — she has a point. Last year, in a piece for Vulture titled “Do They Ever Make Movies About Women?”, Amanda Dobbins calculated the numbers of movies made starring women, analyzing years between 1989 and 2013. Although women are 50% of the population and 50% of ticket buyers, there are plenty of years in which less than half of all wide-release movies have a woman as the star. In fact, some years, movies are 70%-80% male-oriented.
Maybe Fox’s new mentor program will help with that?
Anyway! Zoe Saldana sounds like a force of nature. On the subject of staying friends with exes:
“I have been in relationships where a man has disrespected me, and I don’t need to be friends with that man anymore. I don’t want to be the one going, ‘I’m cool, because I’m friends with all my exes.’ There’s a reason why you’re called an ex. I crossed you off my list. Moving on. You cross a line, you need to know that you’re going to walk this earth knowing that there’s an individual who has no respect for you.”
Here’s her denim-on-denim cover: