Zoe Saldana on Nina Simone Biopic: "Nina Deserves Better"

In an interview with Latina magazine, Zoe Saldana opened up about the controversial Nina Somone biopic in which she stars in. Saldana spoke about channeling Simone for the film, but admits that she is not completely happy with the film.



“I needed to walk her path." she said about the role. "As a woman, it wasn’t difficult to empathize with another woman. But I needed to be very isolated. I moved out of my house for three months. I wasn’t really talking to anybody that I knew. I just needed to be all things Nina."
She then dished on what is happening behind the scenes as the film still has no official release date. "It was so intense, and everything happened really fast. The people behind the project weren’t my cup of tea," she explained. "The director was fine, but there was a lot of mismanagement, which is why we’re still here three years later. And I’m still trying to fight with everybody to get the movie finished. Nina deserves better.”

When asked if she is still haunted by Simone, Saldana responded saying, "Still to this day, I can’t listen to her music. I’ll be able to listen to her and not feel so heartbroken once I either finish this movie and release it, knowing that we did the best we could, or this movie goes away. I pray that somebody tells her story and they do it amazingly well. And then I’ll just put this to rest. But so far I’m still hanging in there with her. We’re still fighting together to tell it like it is. And that’s the best way to be."

Photo: Latina magazine