Perfect Balance

Today, we’re talking about her latest project, Special Ops: Lioness – the new Paramount network show from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan. Saldaña (sans body paint) plays a military agent who is responsible for a program in which young girls infiltrate the inner networks of Taliban members by getting close to women in their families to better locate the intended targets. It’s high-stakes, high-drama and high-action, but it was almost a no-go for Saldaña, who initially turned the project down. “At first, I was really scared of that role,” she says of her character, Joe. The fear stemmed from a complex depiction of motherhood that would require a significant emotional investment from the actor, who is a mother of three. “I just didn’t want to go there,” she says. “But I have a soft spot for renegades, for people who live outside the margins of what is considered normal and acceptable, and I see them; I get them.”

Still, she wasn’t sure she could do it. “When someone like Taylor calls you out of nowhere during 2020, when so much is going on, and he goes, ‘I see you; I believe in you. I’m writing this for you and with you in mind. Do you wanna do it?’ I’m not used to that. Every time it has happened, it has been really special, but I know it doesn’t happen every day. And so I said no. Total self-sabotage! And I went off and did From Scratch.”

“I take my producer hat very seriously,” Saldaña continues. “I don’t want to be the face of everything. I’m an extremely private person. I’m acknowledging my limitations, not just with my time because I’m a mother and I’m in my mid-forties, but also because my desires have changed. I no longer wish to be in the spotlight all the time. I want others to shine. I want to be that pioneer who creates the stage so that others can step on it and be who they need to be.”

When the time is right, however, Saldaña is willing to rise to the occasion, which is why, after From Scratch wrapped, her husband, Marco Perego, texted Sheridan on her behalf to put Special Ops: Lioness back on the table. “I called [Taylor] a year later, when I was in Italy. My husband had said, ‘Enough! Enough of this. Just call him. Send him a text,’ and grabbed my phone. Taylor immediately replied and then, six months later, we were shooting Lioness.”

Despite the high-action nature of the project, the role required almost no physical training. For Center Stage, Saldaña became a ballet dancer. She was en pointe, and that graceful physicality transferred over to her role in Avatar, for the second installment of which she trained to be able to hold her breath underwater for five minutes, a terrifying endeavor to make the scenes in the water more realistic. But to play Joe in Special Ops: Lioness, it was trust in her mental fortitude that was required. “This was the first time that I was a part of an action project where I didn’t have to go through that kind of Colombiana or Avatar transformation. It was more of a psychological internalization of who I was.”

Another challenge on set, perhaps more surprisingly, was staying composed alongside one of her co-stars. “It’s so hard to act cool, like it’s normal to work with Nicole Kidman, when she’s right next to you! It’s Nicole Kidman! That’s somebody I look up to on a daily basis. She would be on my vision board… She transforms and she’s so confident,” says Saldaña, who was overjoyed to find Kidman to be a fellow Gemini. I comment that it’s nice to still feel such excitement at Saldaña’s level, after so much experience at the top of the industry. She laughs and says that her perspective has evolved. “I go to work and I come home. Whatever happens after work is just my personal life. In my twenties, when I first started out, the nightlife, the partying, the events, the showing up, the red carpets – that was very tempting. And for a minute, just a slight little minute, it became quite fascinating, but it’s not the reality.”

Her personal life is now something that she fiercely protects. She has three sons and an adoring husband, and the appreciation she feels for this is palpable. “I am blessed,” she says. “I have a partner who is an active participant in our domestic life.” Although they love traveling together, Saldaña spends a lot of time on the road while her husband, an artist, is at home with the children. “I know that soon it’ll be my turn to pass that baton, but he did it with love and no resentment. There’s no retaliation because it was always our duty,” she tells me. “Sometimes, when that script is flipped, women [don’t] have a partner who can understand that and who doesn’t feel emasculated by it. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to do it if I didn’t have the partner I have.”

She’s invested in reframing gender norms and passing on this message to the next generation, to her sons. “I never baby-talked to my kids. I spoke to them in this voice that you hear, and I try to the best of my ability to cater to their critical thinking. We say, ‘It’s OK for you to have your feelings the way you went about them. It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to be jealous. It’s OK to be mean sometimes. It’s OK to be scared.’ All these things, we normalize in our home, and what we do is take deep observation in the way they go about it.”

Saldaña has a particular reverence for family. She lost her father at a young age and values her close relationships with her siblings and mother. She falls in the middle, with just one year separating each of her sisters. “I’m a ‘middle’. I am a very good litigator, I have to say,” she smiles. This comes in handy, especially when running a family business, and while she offers a mediating role, her sisters help her to feel understood. “I can’t sit still, so my mom would find ways to keep me physically busy, but my sisters found ways to keep me loved. They just unconditionally got me. They spoke ‘Zoe’, you know? That’s how my mom said it.”

She credits her family with giving the foundation that helps her to retain a remarkable sense of self. “I had what others may not have had: I have been exceptionally loved by imperfect people. Did I grow up in an environment where everything was [geared] towards our education? Yes. [Where] all the sacrifices that were made were for our benefit? Yes. Were we the centers of attention? Abso-fucking-lutely.” It’s a confidence-boosting formula that Saldaña is now hoping to replicate as the head of her own household.

Imagining the paths she might have taken had she not been so cloaked in this love and support, Saldaña gets emotional. It is what has kept her sane after two decades in a world of fans, flashbulbs and critics, allowing her to stay grounded and focused. “My use is best served by me giving 150% to the things that I know I’m truly good at and the things that I truly, truly love,” she says. At work and at home, this is the mission that keeps Saldaña pushing limits.

Special Ops: Lioness is available on Paramount+ now. This shoot and interview were completed prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The unmissable new TV shows to add to your watch list now

The best indie movies to watch in 2023