Zoë Saldaña admits being in the Marvel bubble sometimes isn't as great as it seems.
The Guardians of the Galaxy star, 44, said in an interview in InStyle's Winter 2022 digital issue that working with Marvel can sometimes be tough because of its strict protocols for preventing leaks, which means that she will sometimes get a script just hours ahead of when she's scheduled to shoot.
"That can be annoying sometimes," she said. "That's not cool, because you have to memorize, you have to prepare, you have to do research. And I tend to take myself a little too seriously sometimes."
Saldaña previously got in trouble for posting a video in her Gamora makeup, sifting through pages in a binder that Marvel deemed needed to be kept secret. She eventually took down the original February video and uploaded another one — this time with highlighter marks hiding the papers.
"Had to take this down before because of Marvel Security. Now that I covered what they don't want you to see, let's just focus on the Mate!!!!!," Saldaña captioned the Instagram video.
However, Saldaña said she takes her responsibility as an actress seriously.
"I really enjoy working with filmmakers who don't underestimate my intelligence and know that I am an adult," Saldana. "I will be discreet. It is as important to me, as it is for him or her, that I don't let these scripts out of my sight."
Despite this, Saldaña said there are positives to the job, including the fact that her kids (8-year-old twins Bowie and Cy, and 5-year-old Zen) can brag about her.
"I see how he's trying to place me in his mind like, 'Okay, you're Mama, but you're also Gamora,'" she says of her youngest son. "They're going to watch these movies, and it's going to be a part of what they like and what excites them."
"And the fact that that gives me street cred with my kids, it's fun, it's great," she adds.
Saldaña has also said in a recent interview with Women's Wear Daily that while she felt grateful for the opportunity to work in franchise films, it hasn't helped her grow as an artist.
"I feel that for the last 10 years of my life, I've been just stuck. I felt stuck doing these franchises," Saldaña told the outlet. "I'm very grateful for the opportunities that they provided, from collaborating with amazing directors and getting to meet cast members who 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," she added.
So, the actress has tried to diversify her profile with non-franchise projects, like her recent Netflix series From Scratch (which she also produced) and David O. Russell's ensemble crime film Amsterdam.
"I'm so happy that I'm able to collaborate with filmmakers and producers and people in this industry that want that for women, that want women to be ageless and who don't fetishize women's youth," Saldaña told the outlet. "And so it's interesting. It's really interesting."
