Zoe Saldana

Biography of Zoe Saldana

Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario was born on on June 19, 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey. She is an American actress and film producer of Dominican descent.

When Saldana was nine years old, her father died in a traffic accident. Afterwards, her mother returned to her native Dominican Republic with the family, who had previously lived in the New York borough of Queens, where Saldana studied ballet, jazz, Latin American dance and modern dance. After moving back to the United States, she began studying acting. In New York, she attended the FACES Theater Company, which puts on plays on socially critical themes intended to bring young people closer to society's problems.

In 1999, Saldana made her acting debut on the television series Law & Order. After supporting roles in Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) and Terminal (2004), she landed the role of Nyota Uhura in 2009's Star Trek. In 2009, she lent her gestures, facial expressions and voice to the animated character Neytiri in James Cameron's Avatar. In 2011, she starred as Cataleya Restrepo in Luc Besson's action thriller Colombiana. In 2014 she appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy and has since become an integral part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with her role as Gamora.

In November 2011, Saldana split from her fiance Keith Britton, to whom she had been dating for 11 years and had been engaged since June 2010. They remain business partners on their joint fashion website. She was then in an on-off relationship with actor Bradley Cooper from December 2011 to January 2013. In June 2013 she married the Italian Marco Perego in London. At the end of November 2014, she gave birth to twin sons. In February 2017, they again became parents to a son.