Zoe Saldaña Says She Took Role in Lioness to 'Address My Dyslexia and Anxiety' (Exclusive)

Zoe Saldaña is detailing what drew her to Taylor Sheridan's Lioness and why her latest role "required a lot more hours of preparation."

On Wednesday, Oct. 23, the 46-year-old actress spoke with PEOPLE at the season 2 premiere of the spy drama, as she described how "addressing" both her anxiety and dyslexia inspired her to take on the role.

In Lioness, Saldaña appears alongside the likes of Nicole Kidman, Genesis Rodriguez and Morgan Freeman, as she stars as Joe, the program director of the CIA’s Lioness program.

"Well, it's made me believe that I can do it if I continue to really work really hard. I think addressing my dyslexia and my anxiety was the reason why I sort of embarked on this challenge to do a Taylor Sheridan sort of show," Saldaña says. "He's very dialogue-heavy. It's very wordy. There's a cadence to the way he wants the sort of the dialogues in the scenes to be said."

"And I dared myself to believe that maybe I can pull it off. But that required a lot more hours of preparation, which with the support of my husband and my family I was able to do," she adds of husband Marco Perego, with whom she shares twins Cy and Bowie, 9, and Zen, 7.

Saldaña added that being "120% prepared" has indeed helped with her anxiety and dyslexia. "But always understanding that there's always an element of surprise that you have to leave because so many things can happen the morning of the day of," she says. "And if you miss them because you're so much in your head, then you miss everything."

The Marvel star most recently spoke about her struggles with dyslexia and anxiety in an interview with Variety, published on Monday, Oct. 21. At the time, she explained that both had "prevented me from really going after roles — a whole lot of roles — that I know I could have done."

Saldaña told the outlet that working on Lioness had her requesting scripts weeks in advance and hiring someone to break down her lines with her over Zoom each day. The series first premiered on Paramount+ in July 2023.

“I would memorize, memorize, memorize, and by the time that scene would come, it was an extension of who I was — like ballet,” she said. “The moment my brain realized that words are like a plié in a pas de deux, I was just like, ‘Ooh, a grand jeté is like a Taylor Sheridan monologue.’”

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“The worst thing that Taylor can do is to change a scene last minute or add dialogue," she added. "That’s when I’m like, ‘Wait, wait, wait, that’s dyslexia 2.0’ — that will be the next step.”

Elsewhere in her Variety interview, Saldaña shared that one of her long-term goals is to direct a film, but that it isn't the right time to dive into a new project with her kids quite yet. “When you direct — especially the kind of director that I am, and that I’ve witnessed all the directors that I’ve admired be — you live with a movie for years,” she said. “I just want to make sure that my kids are old enough where they don’t even notice that I’m gone.”

She added that she finds it "intolerable" to be away from her children while working. "I always walk around with a heavy heart every time I’m away from them," she said.

Season 2 of Lioness premieres on Oct. 27 on Paramount+.