Charley Gallay/Getty Images for GLAADNow that Zoe Saldana is a mother to twin boys, the 36-year-old actress is using her public platform to speak up for fellow working moms.
Ahead of the release of her upcoming film Infinitely Polar Bear, the Guardians of the Galaxy star, who gave birth in December 2014, opened up to USA Today about the reaction she received upon first learning she was pregnant and revealed the Hollywood response was quite sexist.
"Let me tell you something, it will never be the right time for anybody in your life that you get pregnant," Saldana explains, adding that last year, "the productions I was slated to work on sort of had a panic. I heard through the grapevine there was even a conversation of me being written off of one of the projects."
Her reaction?
"I was like, 'Oh, my God, are you kidding me? It's this bad?' Right when I just feel super-duper happy, is that inconvenient for you?'" Marco Perego's wife says. "That me, as a woman in my thirties, I finally am in love and I am finally starting my life? And it's [screwing] your schedule up? Really?"
Preach, girl.
While pregnancy is supposed to be a happy time, Saldana notes that many in the working world are not very supportive and says it's important for Hollywood studios (and presumably, other big businesses) to pay for childcare for female employees.
Studios "spend more money sometimes 'perking' up male superstars in a movie," adding that they often pay for private jets or "a really phat penthouse or them staying in a yacht instead of them staying on land."
"But then a woman comes in going, 'OK, I have a child," she continues. "'You're taking me away from my home. You're taking my children away from their home. And you're going to make me work a lot more hours than I usually would if I was home. Therefore, I would have to pay for this nanny for more hours — so I kind of need that. And they go, 'Nope, we don't pay for nannies.'"
Saldana is currently preparing to film Star Trek 3 (the article also states that negotiations about the actress' contract were complete at the time of the interview) and in spite of the challenges of being a working mom, the Avatar star insists she loves her job.
"The battle will always be in trying to balance it out," she says. "That's the most exhausting thing, the balance of it all. But it helps when you're doing it with your companion. If I know Marco is trying to balance it as well, then I feel like I'm not alone."