Zoe Saldana Apologizes For Portraying Nina Simone In 2016 Biopic

Most of our favorites have a biopic highlighting their lives in ways we didn’t know them. In 2016, Nina Simone’s biopic was released with Zoe Saldana portraying her. There was a backlash then but Saldana did the movie anyway. Now, she’s sorry she did.

Zoe Saldana is showing remorse for portraying Nina Simone in a biopic years ago.

“I should have never played Nina,” Saldana says in a live video that has been shared on social media. “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. I should have done everything in my power to cast a black woman to play an exceptionally perfect black woman.”

Saldana continued with her apology by asking someone else to tell Simone’s story.

“She’s one of our giants and someone else should step up,” Saldana says. “Somebody else should tell her story.”

Saldana continues saying that Simone’s story has yet to be told on a large scale and it is a shame that more people have not heard her story, likely because of the biopic drama.

People are questioning Saldana’s motives for apologizing.

Simone’s family pushed back asking Saldana not to take the role in the past. They called her out for taking Simone’s legacy and taking the portrayal for someone who would have been better suited to tell the story.

Specifically, people are calling Saldana out for the colorism that played into her portrayal.

In the apology, Saldana does not mention the colorism that played a role in the backlash. Simone was a dark-skinned woman whose skin was important in her civil rights activism and identity. Saldana also had to wear a prosthetic on her nose to have the same nose as the singer.

While critics feel the same sentiment about Saldana as Simone, they want more from her apology.

Colorism is a very important conversation in the Black community. Saldana’s portrayal of Simone was a keystone moment in that discussion of colorism in the Black community. Many are still angered at Saldana’s portrayal of Simone because of the use of blackface and prosthetic to off-set Saldana’s European looks.

READ: Leave It To Zoe Saldana To Take Something As Dark As Her Character’s Baggage And Turn It Into A Message Of Strength And Redemption