A Nina Simone biographical film starring Zoe Saldana has been in the works for several years.
The film has been beset with schedule setbacks, legal issues and controversy over fair-skinned Saldana’s casting as the dark-skinned and oustpoken pro-black Simone. Saldana, who was cast in 2012, has since stated publicly that she perhaps was not the best choice for the role.
Pictures from the film set show Saldana’s skin darkened with makeup to play the character.
Now the film has a release date, April 22, and its first movie poster.
Ladies, what do you think? Will you be seeing the film?
No
this is a damn mess. just cast a dark skinned actor! nina simone would’ve hated this.
Not feeling blackface, Zoey Saldana is a disrespectful opportunist. This movie will fail.
Smh, again Hollywood won’t recognize talent if it kicked b‑slapped them, so No!
I think it’s completely fine. Zoey is a black Latina woman, there is nothing wrong with her playing this role. Even if she had to put on darker makeup for the part. So what? People need to calm down. The problem within the black community is we always like fighting our own. So what if she is light skinned, so what if her hair curls a certain way, so what if her nose is straight. We have to stop this. United we stand, divided we fall.
True but they could have found a dark actress. In light of that, remember the person who played Winnie Mandela wasn’t her size nor color but played the role extremely well. They are creating rolls for the black actress to play (rarely). I wish her well to do extremely very well playing Nia Simone…whom I know little about except she’s a jazz singer very famous too.
But she never claimed to be Black Latina. Not once… until after she made this movie and people were unhappy with it. Then she did a little press when she is all “my sisters”. And when that did not work, they shelved the movie until now. I ain’t got time for that. Don’t let her or Hollywood pull the wool over your eyes.
Wow, I was not expecting this backlash. I felt/feel that a number of actresses should have been considered for this amazing role. However, at least the person chosen is Black. She’s a good actor and I want to see the movie to see if she does justice to Ms. Simone.
No need to lie. I would attempt to watch it.
Boycott! The Estate of Nina Simone slammed her on Twitter. It’s upsetting to Nina Simone daughter. If she truly cared about the legacy and AA history, how could she participate in such an insensitive and inaccurate movie production.
haha because I will go see Rashida Jones and Maya Rudolph any day!
Actually, I had to look up who she was as an actress. I will go see the movie and judge it for myself no matter the actress.
Nope
Idk why they.COULD NOT find a dark-skinned.actress to.play her role, but yes I.will go.see it and.judge for.myself. I love one of our OWN.on.the silver screen (MOST of the time) passing white, light, Brown, light brown, dark, black, blue black and every color in between…we are beautiful!
lordt!
Not one penny. Do NOT give this production one penny folks. Save those black dollars for something of worth. Oh… And I just recently learned that the entire top tier of production was Caucasian. ::sigh:: I can’t… If you want to watch something great about Nina, catch “What Happened Miss Simone?” on Netflix. It is worth every minute.