Zoë Yadira Saldaña-Perego is an American actress. Known primarily for her work in science fiction film franchises, she has starred in four of the highest-grossing films of all time. Films she has appeared in have grossed more than $15 billion worldwide and, as of 2024, she is the second highest-grossing film actress. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023.
Zoë Yadira Saldaña Nazario was born on June 19, 1978, in Passaic, New Jersey. Her parents are Aridio Saldaña, who is Dominican, and Asalia Nazario, from Puerto Rican ancestry. As a child, Nazario was living with her mother in the Dominican Republic, but they immigrated to New York to escape political unrest. In an interview with Wired, Saldaña has said that she is Dominican and Puerto Rican. She and her two sisters, Cisely and Mariel, were raised bilingual in English and Spanish; the latter was their first language at home. The majority of her early childhood was spent in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City.
Their father died in a vehicle crash when Saldaña was nine. Her mother sent the three sisters to the Dominican Republic to be raised by their late father's family. She stayed in New York to work in order to afford private school for the girls. The widowed mother Asalia married Dagoberto Galán, who became the stepfather of the girls. They consider him fully their father. With regard to her racial identity, Saldaña has said, "There's no one way to be Black. I'm Black the way I know how to be." The family returned to New York City after her sophomore year; she completed her early education at Newtown High School in Queens.
Saldaña discovered her love of dance while living in the Dominican Republic. She was enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy studying forms of dance, but describes ballet as her passion. She told Vanity Fair that she quit ballet because she did not "have the feet", and had too much pride and ambition to just be in the corps de ballet. In 1995, Saldaña performed with the Faces theater group in Brooklyn. She appeared in plays that encouraged teens by exploring such issues as substance abuse and adolescent sex. During these years, she performed with the New York Youth Theater; her appearance in their production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat led a talent agency to recruit her. Her dance training and her acting experience helped her land her first film role, playing ballet student Eva Rodriguez in Center Stage (2000).
