Zoe Saldana is opening up about leading Taylor Sheridan‘s newest series, Special Ops: Lioness.
The 45-year-old actress, who stars as Joe in the series, revealed that when she was first offered the series, she passed on it.
However, there was one thing that made her change her mind.
Keep reading to find out more…
Talking with Entertainment Weekly, Zoe admitted that Taylor first came to her with the series in 2020 and “I just couldn’t grasp the thought of committing to a multi-seasonal show when the world was about to end.”
When she did pick the script back up, she says it “was the most exciting thing I had read in a long time. It was absolutely thrilling, you couldn’t put it down.”
Zoe went on, saying that one of the things that drew her to it the most was it’s highlighting of women “under the radar. They can come in as someone’s date, someone’s friend, and they can befriend another female. They can become someone’s lover and for some reason, they don’t present a threat. And I do believe that the female spy has been around since the beginning of time.”
“The reason why Joe was such an appetizing character for me is because for the first time, I didn’t have to pull a muscle, like I always do,” she added.
While Zoe didn’t partake in a lot of physical training for the part, she says that it was a “psychological journey for Joe and I wanted to experience that.”
“Taylor has incredible writing and his monologues are quite powerful. Up until this project I didn’t believe that I can do that,” she shared. “I’m dyslexic, and my first language is not English, so it takes me a little longer to assimilate English grammar and English cadences. I have to approach it from very different angles.”
The first two episodes of Special Ops: Lioness is streaming now on Paramount+.
If you didn’t see, find out why Nicole Kidman said yes to starring the series, on top of producing.
