Zoe Saldana apologizes for playing Nina Simone in 2016 biopic

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Zoë Saldana has apologized for playing legendary jazz singer, pianist, and civil rights advocate Nina Simone in her 2016 biopic Nina.

Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone

The actress, 42, who is Afro-Latino of Dominican, Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, spoke to Pose creator Steven Canals about portraying the singer in an interview on Tuesday.

“I should have never played Nina,” Saldana said. “I should have done everything in my power with the leverage that I had 10 years ago, which was a different leverage, but it was leverage nonetheless.”

She continued, “I should have done everything in my power to cast a Black woman to play an exceptionally perfect Black woman.”

About Nina Simone 

Much of Simone’s work centered on her marginalization as a dark-skinned black woman in America, and fans condemned the casting since it was first announced in 2012.

Nina Simone (Photo by Gerrit de Bruin, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nina_Simone_-1969.jpg)

When promotion for the film began, Simone’s estate tweeted at Saldana: “Cool story but please take Nina’s name out your mouth. For the rest of your life.”

A tearful Saldana said: “I thought back then that I had the permission because I was a Black woman. And I am. But it was Nina Simone, and Nina had a life and she had a journey that should be honored to the most specific detail, because she was a specifically detailed individual.”

She added, “With that said: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know better today, and I’m never going to do that again.”

Apology

The actress initially defended her portrayal of the Simone in 2013 when she told Latina Magazine, “Let me tell you, if Elizabeth Taylor can be Cleopatra, I can be Nina — I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter how much backlash I will get for it. I will honor and respect my Black community because that’s who I am,” she added.

In 2016, she told Allure Magazine : “I made a choice. Do I continue passing on the script and hope that the ‘right’ Black person will do it, or do I say, ‘You know what? Whatever consequences this may bring about, my casting is nothing in comparison to the fact that this story must be told.'”

“For so many years, nobody knew who the f**k she was. She is essential to our American history. As a woman first, and only then as everything else,” the actress added at the time.

But this week she said: “She’s one of our giants and someone else should step up. Somebody else should tell her story.”