Silke Jasso
Zoe Saldaña has now broken a record of her own, thanks to her trusty fans. Over the weekend, the actress’s latest movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, surpassed a whopping $2 billion at the worldwide box office, making the 44-year-old the first actor to have four movies earning more than #2 billion.
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Her other three titles to reach the billion club include 2019’s Avatar, 2019 Avengers: Endgame, and 2018 Avengers: Infinity War. In addition, director James Cameron is now the first to have three films over $2 billion, the other two being Avatar and 1997’ Titanic.
The actress plays Neytiri in the Avatar films, which are said to have more sequels on the way, and plays Gamora in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Guardians of the Galaxy. Last year the actress told Women’s Wear Daily that she sometimes felt creatively stuck while doing franchise films.
Avatar: The Way of Water | Official Trailer
“I feel that for the last 10 years of my life, I’ve been just stuck. I felt stuck doing these franchises,” Saldana started. “I’m very grateful for the opportunities that they provided, from collaborating with amazing directors and getting to meet cast members that I consider friends and getting to play a role that fans, especially children, love.”
“But, it also meant that I felt artistically stuck in my craft of not being able to expand or grow or challenge myself by playing different sorts of genres and different roles.” Last year she clarified the remarks reiterating that she was grateful for the major projects.
“I feel grateful and like the luckiest girl in this town knowing that I was invited to join films with special directors in a special cast,” the actress told Deadline. “And they resonated with people so much that we got a chance to come back again and come back another time. If anything, I’ve reaped all the benefits of that, I’ve gained friends. I still have mentors that I call and I lean into.”
“I think that once I started my family, it just became really hard for me to sustain both worlds and also then cater to this curiosity of playing other different characters or playing earthlings, you know? But I’m happy in space. I’ve always been happy in space. I relate to people that love space as well,” she added.
