Zoe Saldana put self-doubt aside to star in new Taylor Sheridan series 'Special Ops: Lioness'

Zoe Saldana has starred in three successful film franchises -- 'Avatar,' 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Star Trek' -- yet when Taylor Sheridan approached her to lead his new TV series, 'Special Ops: Lioness,' she said no.

Zoe Saldana has starred in three successful film franchises -- " Avatar," " Guardians of the Galaxy " and " Star Trek " -- yet when Taylor Sheridan approached her to lead his new TV series, "Special Ops: Lioness," she said no.

"I have ADD and I'm dyslexic, so learning a lot of dialogue was always very daunting," said Saldana in an interview prior to the start of the actors strike. "I never thought that I would ever get to be a part of (projects) where the dialog and the writing is most important to the whole story. .. I tend to run away from that. I have a hard time focusing, which is why the action genre was always appealing to me."

She says Sheridan called her and was very complimentary, adding that he was writing a character with her in mind. As exciting as the project seemed, she passed.

"I read the pilot, I loved it so much that I freaked out and I walked away from it."

A year later she was in Italy filming the limited-series "From Scratch" and found herself once again thinking about that Sheridan offer and brought it up to her husband.

"I guess he was just sick of me always mentioning the show and not doing anything about it. He was like, `Just call him, just text him.' And the thing about Taylor is that if if he's busy and it's not something that he considers important, he won't call you back for weeks. If it's really something that he wants to really hear, he calls back within seconds, so that's exactly what he did.

"He said, `I'm waiting on you. The script is still here. We haven't done anything with it. Please say yes.' And I did," Saldana recounted.