Zoe Saldana extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Zoe Saldana
Saldana at Hollywood Life Magazine's 7th Annual Breakthrough Awards, December 2007
Born	Zoe Yadira Zaldana Nazario June 19, 1978 (1978-06-19) (age 30) New York City, U.S.A.1
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2000–present
Official website

Zoe Saldana (full name Zoe Yadira Zaldana Nazario, born June 19, 1978)²³ is an American actress. She is also known as Zoë Saldana, Zoe Saldaña, and Zoë Saldaña.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Awards and nominations 4 Filmography 5 References 6 External links

Early life

Saldana was born in New Jersey³ to a mother of Puerto Rican and a father of Dominican descent.⁴ She was raised in Queens, New York, and her first languages are English and Spanish. When Zoe was nine, her father died in a car accident, and her mother moved with Zoe and Zoe's sisters to the Dominican Republic. There, Zoe enlisted in a ballet class at one of the most prestigious dancing schools in the country, gaining experience as a dancer, which benefited her later for her role in Center Stage. She returned to the United States after her sophomore year in high school and enrolled in the Faces Theater Program, an acting course. She also worked in Burger King as a cashier in the mid–1990s.

Career

Saldana was still a member of the program when she got her first screen experience on an episode of Law & Order, which aired October 13, 1999. She left school after her major film debut in Center Stage (2000), which subsequently led to appearances in the Britney Spears vehicle Crossroads (2002) and the comedy Drumline (2002). She played the tough pirate lass Anamaria in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and has appeared in a number of television shows and movies, including The Terminal (2004) and Guess Who (2005). Saldana was also the lead in the video for Juan Luis Guerra's song "La llave de mi corazón", and has recently been cast as Uhura in the upcoming Star Trek movie.⁵

Awards and nominations

• Black Reel Awards
  • 2006, Best Actress: Guess Who (nominated)

• Black Movie Awards
  • 2006, Best Actress: Guess Who (nominated)

• NAACP Image Award
  • 2006, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture: Guess Who (nominated)

• MTV Movie Awards
  • 2003, Best Kiss: Drumline Shared w/ Nick Cannon (nominated)

Filmography

Year	Title	Role
2000	Center Stage	Eva Rodríguez
2001	Snipes	Cheryl
	Get Over It	Maggie
2002	Drumline	Laila
	Crossroads	Kit
2003	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Anamaria
2004	Temptation	Annie
	Haven	Andrea
	The Terminal	Officer Torres
2005	La maldición del padre Cardona	Flor
	Dirty Deeds	Rachel Buff
	Guess Who	Theresa Jones
2006	Premium	Charli
	Ways of the Flesh	Donna
2007	After Sex	Kat
	Blackout	Claudine
	Constellation	Rosa Boxer
2008	Vantage Point	Angie Jones
2009	Avatar	Neytiri Nazachema
	Star Trek	Uhura
	The Skeptic	Cassie
	Burning Palms	Sarah Cotton
2010	Bone Deep	TBA

References

External links

• Zoe Saldana at the Internet Movie Database
• Zoe Saldana at Rotten Tomatoes
• Zoe Saldana at MySpace
• Brant Publications interview (July 2004)