Zoe Yadira Saldana Nazario is an American actress and dancer who was born on 19 June 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey. Her mother is Puerto Rican, and her father is Dominican.
She grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY with her mother and sisters, Cisley and Mariel. Her father died when she was nine years old, and her family moved to the Dominican Republic for a while before returning to New York City.
Her father was a businessman and her mother was a homemaker. Her ancestry includes Lebanese and Haitian heritage, as well as Dominican and Puerto Rican.
As a child, she loved ballet and had her first professional dance experience at ECOS Espacio de Danza in the Dominican Republic. Her first major role was as a ballet dancer in the 2000 teen drama Center Stage, and she appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
After moving back to the United States, she performed in several plays with a theater group called Faces and later with another group called New York Youth Theatre. She also began acting in film.
She was discovered and cast in her first major role by a talent agency. She went on to star in several movies, including The Terminal (2004), Haven (2005) and Temptation (2006).
Avatar, Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Trek are some of her most recognizable films. Her latest, Avatar: The Way of Water, has made over $2 billion worldwide. She has voiced her character in the Star Trek video game as well.
Her parents divorced when she was young, but she and her sisters remained close with their mother. She recently got teary-eyed as she paid tribute to her mother during a party honoring her matriarch for a new uplifting web series that she executive produces.
The actress is half-Puerto Rican, with a small percentage of Haitian and Dominican ancestry. She has a very strong sense of pride in her heritage, and she has always spoken about it with enthusiasm.
She starred as Nyota Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, which won her widespread praise from both critics and audiences alike. The film was a huge success and she was honored with a Golden Globe for her work.
Before she started her film career, she had several roles in TV commercials and music videos. She was also a model for Calvin Klein and Nike.
Her debut in the theater was with the teen drama Center Stage, which led to her film debut in Law & Order. Her acting skills were honed by her years of training at the ECOS Espacio de Danza academy in the Dominican Republic, where she studied ballet and other forms of dance.
After leaving the ECOS Espacio de Dansa academy in the Dominican Republic, she returned to New York City and continued her acting career by joining the theater group Faces. Her performance in a 1999 episode of Law & Order caught the attention of a talent agent.
