Early Life
Saldana was born Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario in Passaic, New Jersey. Her father, Aridio Saldaña (d. 1987), was Dominican, and her mother, Asalia Nazario, is Puerto Rican. Her first languages are Spanish and English. She spent the majority of her early childhood growing up in Queens, New York. After her father died in a car accident when she was nine years old, Saldaña moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother. There, Saldana discovered her love of dance and soon enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy; she studied ballet, jazz, and modern Latin dance. The family returned to Queens after her sophomore year in high school.
In 1995 she began performing with the FACES theater group in Brooklyn, which put on plays geared towards providing positive messages for teens, via themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and sex. Concurrently, she performed with the New York Youth Theater; her appearance in their production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat led a talent agency to recruit her. Her previous dance training, and her acting experience, helped her land her first big screen role as Eva, the talented and headstrong ballet dancer in the 2000 film Center Stage.
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