It’s been a decade since Zoe Saldaña last attended the , and the actor has enjoyed quite an eventful trip. In town this year to debut Jacques Audiard’s —one of the buzziest films of the festival—Saldaña tells that she was thrilled to hit the Croisette’s famous red carpet once again. “The opportunity to come back and to be in competition makes my heart so full,” she says.
“It’s the type of festival where films from all over the world come together. You’re exposed to cinema that is global, you meet incredible filmmakers, and you also get to share space with incredible creatives worldwide.” The star certainly picked the right project to mark her return to Cannes.
Co-starring Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez, earned a at its premiere this weekend. (The film follows a feared drug cartel boss who undergoes gender confirmation surgery.) For Saldaña, it was the original script—and opportunity to work with director Jacques Audiard—that instantly drew her to the film.
“He’s a wonderful storyteller,” she says. “I find his subjects quite engaging—the actors he works with, whether they’re well-known or non-actors, and his tendency [to shoot] in a way that the stories almost feel real and like a documentary, but also very compelling, very intimate. He’s always been a bucket-list director for me.
” In the film Saldaña plays Rita, a lawyer in Mexico City hired by the cartel kingpin, Manitas (Gascón), to help him flee Mexico so that he.