Zoe Saldana (born June 19, 1978) is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role in the 2000 film Center Stage, and later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, and Neytiri in James Cameron’s Avatar. In 2010, she appeared in the film The Losers.
Zoe Saldana was born Zoe Yadira Zaldaña Nazario or Zoe Yadira Zaldana Nazario in New Jersey, United States, to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother. Her first languages are English and Spanish. When she was ten years old, she and her family moved to the Dominican Republic, where they lived for the next seven years.
After returning to New York at age seventeen, she began performing with the Faces theater troupe, which put on plays geared to providing positive messages for teens, via themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and sex. These performances not only gave her valuable experience but also a source of great pride, as she knew that she was making a difference in the lives of young people like herself.
