Zoe Saldana has said she “should never have played” Nina Simone in a maligned biopic, after being accused of donning blackface for the role.
Saldana continued: “I thought back then that I had the permission because I was a black woman – and I am.
Saldana, who is a light-skinned woman of Puerto Rican, Dominican and Haitian descent, wore a full body suit, prosthetic nose and false teeth to play Simone.
“I’m black the way I know how to be,” she said, adding that she “never saw [Simone] as unattractive.