By Dana Kasser
First she conquered the big screen starring in the most successful film of all time and now Zoe Saldana has conquered yet another feat, gracing the cover of Nylon, which reportedly hasn’t featured a woman of color since Lil’ Kim in 2003.
Zoe’s stunning mug is featured on the April issue, Nylon's 11th Anniversary Special, after talk about the magazine being racist towards darker skinned actresses. In her interview, the actress spoke out about stereotypes in casting in Hollywood, “When they say ‘We want to go white,’ they have a very smooth way of saying it, and the recent one is the word traditional.” Zoe goes on to say, “[I’ve heard] ‘Oh, you know, you’re just not what we were looking for, your skin is a little darker.’ Compared to what?! My skin is just my skin. It’s dark if you compare it to someone who’s lighter.”
The actress also discussed what childhood was like, her love of dancing and of course James Cameron and “Avatar.” And if you don’t want to wait till April to read what she has to say, here is more of a sneak peek just for you!
"We went from this urban life to running around barefoot in the countryside and being taught how to gut fish,” Zoe explains on her move from NYC to the Dominican Republic at age 9. “We were learning how to climb coconut trees — let me tell you, they are f***ing dangerous!...I would do my homework in guava and mango trees.” (Maybe if I had a mango tree growing up I would have done my homework, too!)
Now I don’t know about you, but after reading that I couldn’t help but think of Zoe’s character from “Avatar,” Neytiri, running beautifully through the jungle of Pandora, climbing all sorts of trees and showing Jack Sully the lay of the land. Perhaps because of Zoe’s childhood she was able to portray her blue, nine-foor-tall counterpart so gracefully, just saying…
Speaking of “Avatar,” when asked about her first meeting with James, Zoe recalled to the mag, “I’m thinking he probably imagined some Amazonian girl [for Neytiri] — I had really long hair at the time — wearing really little sh*t with like, a bow and arrow.” Not quite Zoe! “I had no idea she was blue and nine feet tall. But for some reason, he was like, ‘You look so much like her!’"
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