Golden Globes 2025: Zoe Saldaña reveals heartwarming message from James Cameron following win
After winning her first Golden Globes award for her performance in Emilia Perez, Zoe Saldaña has thanked the filmmakers who most supported her throughout her 25 years in the film industry.
During the press junket after the ceremony, Saldaña told journalists that she had already heard from James Cameron following her win, saying, “I was sitting in the audience, and I received a message from James Cameron, who’s somewhere in New Zealand right now, cutting Avatar: Fire and Ash. And he, after all these years, believes in me. So that, to me, nourishes my desire to continue growing as an artist.”
Cameron has always spoken highly of the actor, with the director singing her praises for Variety’s October cover story, saying, “I’ve worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a calibre less than that,” he said. “But because in my film she’s playing a ‘CG character,’ it kind of doesn’t count in some way, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. She can go from regal to, in two nanoseconds, utterly feral. The woman is ferocious. She is a freaking lioness.”
Saldaña has been leading the box office charts for years with performances in both Avatar films and Avengers Endgame in 2019. But in 2024, she reached new heights with Emilia Perez, a genre-bending musical by Jacques Audiard.
Saldaña was overjoyed by the win, explaining, “What I feel is actually joy, because there’s a sense of presence. I’ve been in this industry for 25 years,” she said. “I’ve always been employed. I’ve always had good human beings, amazing, undeniably talented filmmakers who believe in me, and bet on me, and trust me consistently. This recognition is paramount for my continuation as an artist. I’m happy. I’m 46. There was a moment a couple years ago where I was sort of thinking about, ‘Do I go into a homestead and start planting a garden?’ But the truth is, I’m an artist through and through, and I need to create every day. I just don’t know what I’d do.”
The actor also took a moment to thank the director of the film, saying, “I’m indebted to filmmakers like Jacques Audiard that, after conversations and auditions and promises that I can do something, they really decided to bet on me. And it worked.”
The film has been met with mixed responses from audiences, but despite this, has swept at the Golden Globes, with the film also winning ‘Best Film in Musical/Comedy’ and ‘Best Non-English Language Film’.
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