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Actress Zoe Saldaña says the Oscars rejecting Avatar in its awards ceremony is “quite deflating,” adding that it makes her feel “overlooked and then minimized and completely disregarded.”
After being asked if she feels awards shows struggle to look past cobalt-blue skin or digitally engineered doe eyes when choosing nominations, such as performances in films like Avatar, Saldaña answered, “They do.”
“Old habits die hard, and when you have old establishments, it’s really hard to bring forward change,” Saldaña, who starred in the Avatar franchise as Neytiri, told the Independent.
“And I understand that, so I’m not bitter about it, but it is quite deflating when you give 120 percent of yourself into something,” the actress added.
Saldaña went on to say that “not winning is okay,” and “not being nominated is okay,” adding, “but when you’re overlooked and then minimized and completely disregarded…”
The Guardians of the Galaxy actress also responded to those who reportedly argued that her performance in Avatar was the achievement of the films’ technicians alone, saying, “I know the difference between that and what we did.”
Nonetheless, Saldaña said that she understands the resistance and insisted she doesn’t have any chips on her shoulder over it.
“At some point you have to ask yourself: why is it that I do what I do? Is it so others can give me approval? Or is it because I don’t want to do anything else?” the actress said.
Earlier this year, filmmaker and director James Cameron told Variety that the Oscars are overdue to recognize Saldaña’s work as Neytiri in the Avatar films.
“I’ve worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a caliber less than that,” Cameron said. “But because in my film she’s playing a ‘CG character,’ it kind of doesn’t count in some way, which makes no sense to me whatsoever.”
“She can go from regal to, in two nanoseconds, utterly feral. The woman is ferocious. She is a freaking lioness,” the director added.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
