Zoe Saldaña was advised to go adopt a stage name when she first became famous.
The actress, known for blockbuster movies such as “Avatar,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the action flick “Colombiana” has revealed that she was advised early on in her career to change her name.
The Adam Project actress told Entertainment Weekly that early in her career, around the time she made the 2000 ballet movie Center Stage, she was told it would benefit her career to change her name.
“When I did Center Stage, I remember being discouraged by my management at that time to use my name,” said Saldaña. “But their intention was never for me to stop being who I am. They celebrated who I was. But my manager at the time was a former singer and a ballroom performer, and she did change her name as well when she was a teenager back in the ’60s, I believe. And she said it’s what everybody does.”
She added, “That today is advice we consider poor, but that was her doing the best that she wanted for me. But I still knew that I liked my name.”
Today, Zoe Saldaña, 43, stars in some of the biggest film franchises out there, including Star Trek, Avatar and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
Speaking with ScreenRant about her new Netflix time-travel movie, the star shared what she would tell her younger self if she could go back 20 years when she was just starting her movie career.
“What would I tell her? ‘Don’t be so nervous.’ I remember at that time, I was just so nervous because I was getting to do these projects for the very first time, and I was getting to travel to these places for the very first time,” she said.
“So there was a lot of nervousness that I felt, and always having to cover that up to look like I’ve been here before. But I would just tell her, ‘Don’t be so nervous. You belong.’ ”
The Adam Project is now streaming on Netflix.
Zoe Saldaña was born on June 19, 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey, to Asalia Nazario and Aridio Saldaña. Her father was Dominican and her mother is Puerto Rican.
When she was 17, she returned to New York City and began performing with youth theatre groups. After two small guest appearances (1999) on the television series Law & Order, Saldaña was cast in a prominent role in the movie Center Stage (2000), about students at a New York City ballet school. Are you a princess of Pop?
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