How Zoe Saldaña Infused Her Dominican Heritage Into Pixar's 'Elio'

Yeah, it was really awesome getting to work with her. She brought her own kind of background and kind of infused it into the character of Olga. She's Dominican, and so is Olga in the movie. And, like, we would workshop, like, ways that she would say a line or, like, express frustration or just a song that Olga would listen to on the radio that, you know, a Dominican might listen to. So we leaned on her a lot. Creatively for those kinds of things and her sense of humor. I think a lot of the movies she's in and shows she's in showcase her like amazing, serious acting chops, but she's also just a really funny warm person and I'm really glad that we got to see both sides of her in this film and and laugh with her and kind of laugh at Olga so she's not you watch this buttoned up woman become a little less buttoned up as time goes by and I think you just love her all the more for it. Yeah and that like in her performance she infuses yeah like so much of her own experience being a mother like you know when there's scenes where like Olga and Elio are butting heads yeah and And they're arguing and like maybe Olga kind of like. Flies off the handle. Flies off the handle or, like, gets worked up. Zoe's performing it from a place of love and concern, and you always feel that when you're watching these characters on screen. Yeah, and Zoe, when you think of Zoe, she's the queen of sci-fi, right? She's done all this, so she brings that aspect to the film. She's also played these military roles, so she has great respect for the military and is really great about playing that aspect of Olga. So she just added so much to the film. She has it all. She has it all.