Zoe Saldana is featured in the September 2011 issue of GQ Magazine. I have also updated with some of Zoe’s older photoshoots that range from 2009-2011.

Zoe Saldana’s Killer Instinct

by Josh Eells

Zoe Saldana sexed up the Starship Enterprise, then a planet called Pandora. Call that her blue period. In her next role, she’s red-hot as a stone-cold, ass-kicking, lollipop-sucking assassin. Works for us

Zoe Saldana was out dancing the other night when a fight broke out one table over. Her companions scattered; she stayed put. “I knew exactly what I was going to do,” she says. “Kick this door, grab this, move that guy out of the way. Then I started laughing: Oh, my God, I still have Cataleya in my system.”

Cataleya Restrepo is the lethally sexy hit woman in Saldana’s latest gig, Colombiana. For the film—in which her character avenges her parents’ murders with machine guns, explosives, and, memorably, a toothbrush—she underwent combat training with the stuntman who turned Matt Damon into Jason Bourne. This was fresh off her turn as a mercenary in The Losers and before that as a Pandoran in Avatar, for which she mastered archery and Wushu. All of which has made her the ass-kickingest female star since Angelina Jolie. Like Jolie, Saldana’s physicality— all fluid angles and long lines—is part of what makes her so much fun to watch; before the bad guys are finished staring, they’re already dead.

Saldana’s action roots run deep. The actress, 33, grew up partly in the Dominican Republic, where she learned to climb mango trees and gut fresh-caught fish. She remembers herself as “a feminine tomboy. I had my plastic swords, my ninja stars—but I still wore lipstick.”

Saldana spent a decade wasted in sidekick parts until 2009′s Star Trek and her xenolinguistics expert, Uhura. (Saldana herself speaks four languages—five if you count Na’vi.) Next year she’ll trade the martial arts for a couple of marital dramas, though don’t expect any doting wives: “It gets pretty boring when all you are is the support system for a male character,” she says. “I want to be in the small percentage of women who don’t settle for conventional roles.” Shouldn’t be a problem with that roundhouse.

Be sure to check out all 83 photos of Zoe photographed by professional photographers.

Images are for personal use only. If you repost these images on your site there must be credit.

• 0002x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2011 Photoshoot Sessions > GQ – September 2011
• 0007x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2011 Photoshoot Sessions > C Magazine – June 2011
• 0012x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2011 Photoshoot Sessions > Prestige (Hong Kong) – May 2011
• 0005x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2011 Photoshoot Sessions > Unknown Publicity – May 2011
• 0010x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2010 Photoshoot Sessions > Esquire (Latin America) – Dec. 2010
• 0009x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2010 Photoshoot Sessions > People – May 2010
• 0012x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2010 Photoshoot Sessions > Essence – April 2010
• 0007x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2010 Photoshoot Sessions > Los Angeles Times – April 2010
• 0001x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2010 Photoshoot Sessions > People – March 2010
• 0007x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2010 Photoshoot Sessions > Entertainment Weekly – January 2010
• 0010x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2009 Photoshoot Sessions > Complex – December 2009
• 0001x – Photoshoot Sessions > 2009 Photoshoot Sessions > Vanity Fair (Italy) – June 2009

Last 5 posts by Cee.Cee

• Zoe Saldana: Gen Art's Fresh Faces In Fashion - October 23rd, 2011
• Zoe Saldana: October 17, 2011 & October 15, 2011 - October 21st, 2011
• Zoe Saldana: October 6, 2011 / Huge Out & About Update - October 8th, 2011
• Zoe Saldana: 2011 Flaunt & Latina Photoshoot Sessions - August 28th, 2011
• Zoe Saldana: “The Neo-Golden Age” Party - August 20th, 2011

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