“You have to try to understand where people are coming from. This has always been an issue in our society. A white person can play Cleopatra, even though Cleopatra was a North African woman who in reality had coffee skin. But that’s not sellable in Hollywood. So you get Elizabeth Taylor with purple eyes. So there’s always been a lot of tension in the African-American community about Hollywood being a whitewashing machine. But that wasn’t the case with Nina [Simone]. There were so many other variables that people don’t know about. I wasn’t the first person to step up to the plate. They went out to everybody for the part. There were other people attached for years [like Mary J. Blige]. And they just decided not to do it. And at the end of the day, we had to tell this story. It’s our duty to go out and tell stories about women and about people of color because we don’t do that enough.”
– Zoe Saldana addresses the controversy of her being cast as Nina Simone in an upcoming biopic, in a cover story (Aug. 1) with The Hollywood Reporter. Nina’s daughter Simone has been vocal about wanting a talented actress who resembles her mother to play the role.
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