After her 2025 most-nominated movie at the 2025 Oscars, despite the film's controversy. The movie seemed like a shoo-in for the best performing movie of the night at the Oscars. Despite this, Emilia Pérez only took home two awards.

The two awards the film took home, Best ing Actress and Best Original Song, were well-deserved, though. Zoe Saldaña won the 2025 Oscar for Best ing Actor for her role as Rita Mora Castro in Emilia Pérez. The name will sound extremely familiar to moviegoers, raising questions about her past at the awards ceremony.

Zoe Saldaña Has Won One Oscar

Zoe Saldaña's Previous Films Fall Into The Category Of "Genre Film"

Despite appearing in some of the biggest and most popular films in Hollywood, the 2025 Oscars gave Zoe Saldaña her first-ever Oscar, bringing her total to one. Impressively, Saldaña performed one of two awards sweeps this season. If she's talented enough to perform an awards sweep, people might wonder why she hasn't won an Oscar before. The discordance between her fame and her Oscar awards likely comes down to one factor – Saldaña often performs in genre films. She's one of the biggest names in sci-fi. Unfortunately, movies she's acted in, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Columbiana, Avatar: Way of the Water, and Star Trek, are often dismissed at the awards shows, no matter how good they might be.

The types of films Saldaña usually acts in are unfortunately viewed as lowbrow because they lean into genre tropes and use character archetypes. It's a long-existing frustration that genre films are written off, but it has only recently started to change in very small amounts. Luckily, Zoe Saldaña's role in Emilia Pérez was able to defy the odds, despite the film leaning into campy, genre-driven elements.

Zoe Saldaña's Oscars Win For Best Actress Set A Record

Saldaña Is The First Dominican American Actor To Win An Oscar For Acting

As Saldaña acknowledged in her acceptance speech, she broke barriers with her win because she's the first Dominican American actor to win an Oscar in any of the big four categories, making her one of the seven record-breakers at the 2025 Oscars. During her emotional speech, she expressed appreciation for her grandmother and hard-working immigrant parents. The win is made sweeter by the fact that she was able to speak and sing in Spanish during Emilia Pérez, making her one of the few actors or actresses to gain an Oscar for a non-English-speaking performance.