Considering that she’s been a vital part of both Avatar, which is on best movies of the 2000s list, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you have to call Zoe Saldaña one of the biggest movie stars in the world. She’s also one of the most colorful, considering that her two most popular characters are green and blue aliens. However, the actress says there’s a side benefit to the fact that her characters change her so much, as it means she’s not mobbed in public.
Zoe Saldaña’s movies have made billions of dollars, but the actress recently told CBS that she’s frequently able to go about her daily life without being recognized as often as you might expect. Especially since she's a woman who’s been in several of the top grossing movies of all time. Saldaña chalks this up to the fact that people simply don’t recognize her in public because she doesn’t look like Gamora or Neytiri. Saldaña explained…
I can take my kids to a coffee shop and I'll be recognized of course, sometimes. And sometimes I won't.
It seems that these roles have provided the actress with a significant amount of anonymity, certainly far more than we'd expect considering the movies she has been in.
Thanks to the motion capture CGI of the Avatar franchise, Zoe Saldaña certainly doesn’t look much like herself in that particular franchise. If that was the first time you saw the actress you’d certainly be hardpressed to recognize her if you saw her in public later. And between the green body makeup and the red hair, Gamora isn’t that much closer to reality.
We’ve seen the work that is needed to turn Zoe Saldaña into Gamora, and it’s fairly intense. It takes hours in the makeup chair to create many of these alien creatures and nobody likes it. But it’s perhaps nice to know that there is some slight upside to going through it all, as nobody wants to get mobbed by fans when just trying to take their kids to a coffee shop.
Saldaña has certainly looked more like herself in a lot of other movies, including some other big franchise films like the Star Trek movies, so she's certainly used to being recognized. What's more, it probably still happens a lot. But one certainly wonders if she might continue to seek out these roles that transform her if only because they allow her a bit more privacy.
While Saldaña has said that she’s done with Gamora, and the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 certainly put a satisfying end to that story, she’ll certainly continue to play Neytiri in the Avatar franchise, and for a long time to come considering the three remaining Avatar movies have all been pushed back from their previous release dates, so she’ll be playing that role for more than another decade. While all signs point to those films being massive blockbusters too, it’s unlikely to change her freedom at the local coffee shop.
