Zoe Saldana has opened up about her unpleasant experience filming Pirates of the Caribbean

'I left that experience feeling a little bitter’

Zoe Saldana is one of the most influential women in Hollywood, starring in Avatar, Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Trek.

But according to the sci fi star, things weren’t always so easy, with the 39-year-old explaining in a recent interview with Cosmopolitan how her first major film experience left her feeling ‘a little bitter’.

The actress got her big break in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl where she played the role of Anamaria the pirate. But according to Zoe, the ‘super elitist’ environment on set was difficult to cope with, involving ‘dealing with a lot of people who were great and a lot of people who were not so great’.

‘If I’m like “I could have been with my family, in school learning, or travelling, but instead I’m here being treated like an extra but in a very despicable way by people who don’t even speak properly…” my time is being wasted’, she explained to Cosmopolitan. ‘I left that experience feeling a little bitter’

In fact according to Zoe, she was dangerously close to leaving the industry because of it, but her next job, The Terminal, changed everything when Steven Spielberg made a big effort to rectify her past experiences.

‘I booked The Terminal right after so I got to work for an amazing director who is known for being humble and a mentor,’ she explained. ‘He remembered that I'd been made to feel so irrelevant before and he went out of his way to make me feel the exact opposite.’

And according to Zoe, that’s not going to change. ‘I don't want to go back to that,’ she explained. ‘I don't want to hear another man tell me, “Oh you were my muse”. I don't want to be your fucking muse anymore. I don't want you to just post me on your wall and look at me. I want you to listen to me!’.