Hi, everyone. My name is Scott Feinberg. I'm the executive editor of awards coverage at The Hollywood Reporter, and I want to thank you for joining us for this live recording of my THR podcast awards chatter here at the wonderful SCAD Savannah Film Festival. For those of you

who are tuning into this episode, this is taking place on the campus of the Savannah College of

Art and Design, which I think we can give a little applause to here in beautiful Savannah, Georgia.

Today it is my great honor and privilege to be joined by a tremendously gifted actress

who is marking her 25th year of work on screens big and small.

She has been described by the Los Angeles Times as the queen of the film franchise,

having helped anchor the Avatar, Avengers,

Guardians of the Galaxy, and Star Trek film franchises. And she is the first and only actor

or actress to have starred in four films that grossed more than $2 billion worldwide.

But she is also so much more than that, as we were reminded this year by her performance in the French filmmaker Jacques O'Diard's highly unconventional Spanish language musical Amelia Perez, in which she plays an underappreciated criminal defense attorney in Mexico who is recruited to help a cartel leader with a top secret mission.

Those who have already seen the film have gone nuts for it. It received an 11-minute standing ovation following its world premiere at May's Cannes Film Festival, and the festival's jury awarded her and her co-stars the best actress prize. Soon, everyone will have the

opportunity to see the film. It debuts in Select U.S. and Canadian theaters today on route to a

November 13th debut on Netflix in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. In the meantime, we, lucky few,

have the chance to pick her brain about it here in Savannah.

So would you please join me in welcoming one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2023,

who is somehow having an even better 2024, Zoe Saldanya.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, Zoe, thank you for coming of Savannah, and thank you for doing this.

No, thank you for having me. This is such an honor. Thank you so much.

Well, on this podcast, we go back to the very, very beginning. So can you tell everyone,

where were you born and raised, and what did your folks do for a living? I am a first-generation

Caribbean-American, yeah, with some traces of Puerto Rican in me, yes.

Very, very proud.

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