‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’: Why Zoe Saldana Almost Turned Down Gamora

After spending years playing a blue Na’vi in the “Avatar” movies, Zoe Saldana has had her fill of being painted in the makeup chair – so much so that she nearly turned down the role of the very green Gamora in “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

“That was kind of the canker sore of the whole experience of wanting to do ‘Guardians’ and that almost made me say no,” Zoe told Access Hollywood’s Liz Hernandez, when asked what the process of becoming green entailed at the “Guardians of the Galaxy” junket on Saturday. “It was gonna be a little grueling and I’m a very impatient person – I can’t sit still, so I was gonna drive everybody crazy!”

The 36-year-old beauty got past the mental makeup hurdle and signed on for the role, and soon took her place in the makeup chair for hours each day.

“[It took] four to five hours every day, [with] six-day weeks for five months. It was fun, it was tons of fun,” she joked.

And Gamora’s hue stayed with the actress long after she left the Marvel set each day.

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“Green was on my pillows, and in my tub, and I’d blow my nose and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, when is this gonna stop coming out of my lungs?'” she laughed. “It was just crazy.”

It took about one month of playing the intergalactic assassin before she started to get used to the arduous cosmetic process.

“The first month is very challenging, because you have to adjust to the rhythm to the tone of everything, to leaving the set, leaving work at night and arriving at night,” she said. “But then when you see the end result, it’s so rewarding, you feel like, ‘I did that!’

“I wanted to sort of tap into and kind of go, ‘Well, at least I did that, and cross it off my bucket list,” she added. “And it was fun and it was eventful.”

Little did she know at the time, Zoe will most likely be back in that makeup chair sooner than she expected, as rumors of a sequel are already surfacing.

“I didn’t think that we would be talking about sequels so quickly!” she said. “And I don’t want to jinx it, it all depends on the success of this movie.”

“Guardians of the Galaxy,” which also stars Chris Pratt, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, hits theaters on August 1.

Erin O’Sullivan

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