Zoe Saldana almost turned down Star Trek Into Darkness

Starring in J.J. Abrams’ critically acclaimed reboot of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek (2009) and reprising her role as Nyota Uhura in the film’s much anticipated sequel Star Trek Into Darkness releasing in India first on 10 May, 2013, is the stunning actress Zoe Saldana. Incidentally, she also starred in James Cameron’s huge hit Avatar playing an alien Neytiri in a film that reinvented cinema and box office collections. Well what we don’t know is that she almost didn’t accept her role in following project Star Trek out of plain fear post Avatar. "I was afraid... I think I was just a little beside myself because after the treat and the gift of booking Avatar and being in the middle of shooting, to be able to then do another great movie with another great filmmaker back to back—I was a little overwhelmed," says the actress. But the actress has loved science fiction since she was a little girl and hence was excited to be part of the project. “I was always captivated by space and space travel" she says. "And I think the human race is fascinated with what might be out there, outside of us and beyond our world." “I love science fiction I grew up with a mom that’s a sci-fi buff and I’ve read Dune (by Frank Herbert) three times. When I was thirteen, I dressed up as Lady Jessica (a character in Dune) for Halloween. So this is definitely my arena and I find it hard to believe that there are people on earth who don’t like it. The one thing I’ve learned since I was a little girl is that it doesn't matter where a story is set – in the future, a period piece or on a boat – if it’s a good story and it has rich characters it will not distract you from getting into the story,” the actress avers. Returning to The Enterprise is the crew that brought it so viscerally to life in Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness viz Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as first officer Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard Bones McCoy, Simon Pegg as Chief Engineer Scotty Scott, Zoe Saldana as communications officer Uhura, John Cho as Helmsman Hikaru Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov and Bruce Greenwood as Admiral Christopher Pike.