From box-office queen to queen of the box
ZOE SALDAÑA TAKES UP ARMS FOR NEW SERIES SPECIAL OPS: LIONESS
WORDS JAMES DYER
CIA operative Joe (Zoe Saldaña) is outstanding in her field
And has nerves of steel
Joe’s supervisors Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) and Donald Westfield (Michael Kelly) get the point.
“SHE’S AN EAGLE,” insists Zoe Saldaña. “I kept arguing with my acting coach because she was like, ‘Well, she’s a falcon’. But I said, ‘No, she’s definitely an eagle!’”
The ‘she’ in question is Joe, the beating heart of Paramount+’s Special Ops: Lioness and one of only a scant few TV characters Saldaña has played since her fresh-faced debut in Law & Order back in 1999. After achieving box-office domination — becoming the first-ever actor to appear in four movies that have made more than $2 billion each — the actor is now returning to the small screen. And she’s chosen the role carefully. When viewers first meet Joe, we witness the CIA operative calmly order an airstrike against Taliban insurgents who have her pinned down under heavy fire — all the while trying to finish up a phone call without being rudely interrupted. Whether she is in fact an eagle, a falcon or a particularly no-nonsense pigeon (it seems prep for roles these days involves a good working knowledge of ornithology), Joe is a woman with nerves of solid granite.