Zoe Saldana responds to Nina Simone critics: 'There's no one way to be black'

The actor faced a backlash by those who claimed her performance in Nina, as the iconic singer, constituted as 'blackface'

Zoe Saldana has responded to the backlash she faced for her performance in the Nina Simone biopic, Nina.

The actress - of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent - has been accused of performing in "blackface" for the role of the legendary singer; with the lighter-skinned actress donning darker makeup and a prosthetic nose to imitate Simone's appearance.

The singer's estate told the actress on Twitter, "please take Nina's name out of your mouth. For the rest of your life"; with Simone's daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, stating the project. "has been tainted from the very beginning. This is not how you want your loved ones remembered."

A key factor in the controversy is not only the mere reality of Simone's darker colour skin tone, but how much personal and creative pride she took in it. Kuba Shand-Baptiste wrote for the Independent, "The dark shade of Simone’s skin and her distinctly African features defined her politics and her music – to portray her in this way is nothing short of criminal."

However, Saldana has now hit back against her critics; telling Allure, "There is no one way to be black. I’m black the way I know how to be. You have no idea who I am. I am black. I’m raising black men. Don’t you ever think you can look at me and address me with such disdain."

"I never saw her as unattractive," she continued. "Nina looks like half my family! But if you think the [prosthetic] nose I wore was unattractive then maybe you need to ask yourself, ‘What do you consider beautiful? Do you consider a thinner nose beautiful, so the wider you get, the more insulted you become?'"

"The script probably would still be lying around, going from office to office, agency to agency, and nobody would have done it," she explained of her decision to take on the role. "Female stories aren’t relevant enough, especially a black female story. I made a choice. Do I continue passing on the script and hope that the ‘right’ black person will do it, or do I say, ‘You know what? Whatever consequences this may bring about, my casting is nothing in comparison to the fact that this story must be told.'"

She still very much sees the film as an absolute achievement, despite the controversy and poor critical reception. "The fact that we’re talking about her, that Nina Simone is trending?" she said. "We f*cking won. For so many years, nobody knew who the fuck she was. She is essential to our American history. As a woman first, and only then as everything else... Let it be the first movie. If you think you can do it better, then by all means. Let ours be version number one of 10 stories in the next 10 years about the fucking iconic person that was Nina Simone."

The biopic’s distributor, Robert L. Johnson, founder of RLJ Entertainment, has already spoken out about the controversy; stating, "It’s unfortunate that African Americans are talking about this in a way that hearkens back to how we were treated when we were slaves. The slave masters separated light-skinned blacks from dark-skinned blacks, and some of that social DNA still exists today among many black people."