Zoe Saldaña Admits She Has ‘Street Cred’ With Her Sons

In Zoe Saldaña’s house, phrases like “boys will be boys” don’t exist. Although she once hoped to have a daughter, the Avatar star has fully accepted the challenge of raising three sons in a post-Me Too world.

But in a new digital cover story for InStyle, the 44-year-old did admit that being a Marvel star has its perks in Hollywood and at home. The on-screen superhero — who shares 8-year-old twins, Bowie and Cy, and 5-year-old Zen with husband Marco Perego Saldaña — knows playing Gamora in the Marvel franchise Guardians of the Galaxy and Ney'tiri in the Avatar movies is a big deal to her boys.

"I see how [my youngest] is trying to place me in his mind like, 'OK, you're mama, but you're also Gamora,” Saldaña said. “They're going to watch these movies, and it's going to be a part of what they like and what excites them. And the fact that that gives me street cred with my kids, it's fun, it's great."

The recent, and successful, Netflix romance-drama series From Scratch was a departure for Saldaña, who confesses to loving action movies just as much as her children.

“When I was a kid, that's what I was watching, not princess things. My idol was Ellen Ripley [Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien] and Sarah Connor [played by Linda Hamilton]," she told InStyle.

Saldaña said that her boys are going to grow up to be “really pretty nerds” as they’re into fantasy world but also extremely good-looking. (In her humble mom opinion.)

"I know that every parent finds their children super-handsome. Maybe that's what's to blame. But I look at my kids and I'm like, 'My god, you guys are so f—king handsome,’" she joked.

And although Saldaña herself seems like the most well-rounded person on the planet, she told the magazine she’s actually intimidated by people who appear to have everything figured out.

“I've always felt very insecure around people that are just too cool and that have themselves so put together and know exactly what to say and know everything. I've always felt very unstable around people like that,” she said. “I like to be around people that are naturally curious and honest about the curiosity. And when they don't know something, I like when they say, ‘I don't know what you're talking about.’ My kids are like that; they feel so present.”

In a 2020 interview with People, Saldaña admitted that although she always wanted a daughter, she has fully embraced and accepted “the challenge” of raising sons, "because that means I get to witness and really nurture a young boy before he turns into a man, and I think that that's the task for us mothers, as well."

She is all about teaching Bowie, Cy and Zen not to conform to gender stereotypes and wants them “to be vulnerable and sensible” and avoid “fight[ing] physically because, 'Oh, boys will be boys' — those kinds of terms just don't exist in our home."

"'Daddy's little girl' and 'Mama's boys,' we don't have that," she concluded. "My husband is the father and I'm the mother, but we are [both active] participants in the upbringing of [our kids] and that's really important."

A supermom, for sure.