During a recent career retrospective, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar star Zoe Saldaña said she was proud of how Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl came out, but she was also happy she didn’t end up being called back for more of those movies, citing a very difficult production in which she felt like a tiny piece of a larger machine. Speaking with Buzzfeed UK, Saldaña said that she didn’t feel like the role was “an experience worth reliving,” although she stopped short of repeating some of the harshest criticisms she had over the years.
Back in October, Saldaña revealed that executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer had approached her years after the movie had been released. Apparently, Bruckheimer had heard somehow that Saldaña had a very negative experience making the film, and apologized, saying that was not something he ever wanted an actor to experience on his sets.
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“What a great movie. It really was fun and entertaining, and very well shot, very well performed,” Saldaña told Buzzfeed UK in a video seen below. “It was all around, such a diverse cast, as well. All ages, all walks of life, but a hard production. It was so big! It was too big a machine for me and it was too out of control. So what I see, that transpired onscreen, I’m very proud of. How difficult it was to get there, I don’t ever want to go back.”
Saldaña also addressed long-standing rumors that her character was supposed to have returned in future movies, saying that she wasn’t aware of any such plans, and that if that was the filmmakers’ intent, she was glad the direction changed without her knowledge.
“I was only asked to be a part of one, and then that was it,” Saldaña said. “Maybe they chose to go in a different direction. If that was certainly the goal in the beginning, it didn’t transpire by the end of the production, and I’m happy it didn’t. There were just a lot of politics that I would have had to navigate, and I felt really lost and very small in that big machine. But I’m happy for all the actors that benefitted from this, because they certainly did, and went off to have amazing careers, and I followed their careers and felt really inspired. But for me, it as definitely an experience not worth reliving.”
You can stream Curse of the Black Pearl and other Pirates movies on Disney+. The studio’s next big blockbuster about one of their rides, Haunted Mansion, is coming to theaters on Friday.
