“I almost stopped the job”: 23 years ago, this future star could have abandoned everything after playing in Pirates of the Caribbean

You may not remember it but Zoe Saldaña played a supporting role in the first Pirates of the Caribbean: the curse of the Black Pearl, embodying Anamaria, a pirate in conflict with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) for having stolen his ship. It was one of his first roles, but above all his first role in a highly successful production.

However, according to the actress in person, the experience was so destabilizing that she almost pushed her to leave Hollywood at the very moment when her career took off: this is indeed what she declared in an interview with Hollywood Reporter in 2014.

“” “These people did not suit me. I'm not talking about the casting. He was excellent. I am talking about the political negotiations that took place behind the scenes. There was a lot of 'above the line' against 'below the line', extras against actors, producers against assistants. It was very elitist. I almost stopped the job. I was 23 years old and I said to myself: 'Put ***'. I will never get back into this situation again. I lack respect because they look at my number on a roadmap and think that I am not important. Put ***.»

Editor's note: the terms “Above the Line” and “Below the Line”, which can be translated by “above the line” and “below the line” designate categories of expenditure in the production of a film and thus separate the cinema trades in two. Directors, actors, screenwriters and producers are part of the “Above The Line” category (which concerns expenses related to creative talents and intellectual property rights). The technical teams, the teams dealing with sets, costumes and others, are therefore part of the “Below the Line” category.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Proud of the result however

In 2023, Zoe Saldaña This experience has once again mentioned, when it was invited by the Buzzfeed site to return to certain significant roles of her career by watching extracts from her films. On this occasion, she spoke of her passage in the universe of Caribbean pirates.

“” “What a great movie!“She started by declaring.”It was fun, fun, very well filmed, very well played, a filming full of life … But it was a difficult, huge production. A machine far too big for me in fact, out of control. When I see these scenes and what sweats on the screen, I am very proud of the result.»

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

And to the question of whether he was expected to come back, she answered: “I was only asked to be part of a single adventure, and that's it. Perhaps they decided to go in a different direction. It was perhaps the starting intention, but it did not sweat at all at the end of the production, and I am finally happy that it is so. It was a lot of political decisions through which it was necessary to navigate. And again, I really felt lost in this huge machine. […] For me, it is an experience that is not worth repeated.»

Apologies and an exemplary career

In an interview with the BBC in 2023, Zoe Saldaña However, added that producer Jerry Bruckheimer had finally apologized to her discomfort on the set, a gesture that she described as “completely honorable”.

Thus, everything is good that ends well: the actress obtained apology but she above all persevered and continued her career, playing later in legendary sagas like Avatar, Star Trek and the guards of the Galaxy, without forgetting her recent performance in Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, for which she won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice and the Bafta Best actress in a supporting role at the start of the year.

Zoe Saldaña will be found in the next part of the saga AvatarAvatar: Fire and Ash, December 17, 2025, and we can currently hear his voice in the original version of the Elio cartoon of Disney and Pixar studios. Among his future projects, we can cite the Drama The Absence of Eden, with Adria Arjona and Garrett Hedlund, and the next Star Trek, two films that do not yet have a planned release date with us.

While waiting to know more, Emilia Pérez is to be reviewed on MyCanal.