Zoe Saldaña and Kate Winslet join simply, as colleagues who haven’t seen one another shortly usually do: They labored collectively on James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Manner of Water,” which was launched in 2022, and also will seem in subsequent yr’s third movie, “Fireplace and Ash.” Saldaña had created the position of Neytiri within the first “Avatar” in 2009, and Winslet — a Cameron veteran, in fact, from “Titanic” — joined the ensemble because the character Ronal, a shaman and warrior.

Winslet remembers the nice and cozy surroundings Cameron established through the movies’ rehearsal interval, and “that sense of collaboration and willingness to share and hear and to ask concepts.” Saldaña agrees, and says, “It’s loopy what you are able to do whenever you’re given a vast quantity of sources to place a personality collectively. It’s essentially the most rewarding course of.”

Talking about Cameron and the Na’vi, who within the “Avatar” films are the embattled native folks of Pandora, she provides: “It’s so stunning how he completely gave us free company to construct the Na’vi folks from scratch with him.” Not that there wasn’t competitors on set — addressing Winslet, Saldaña says with amusing: “You must be within the room each time he talks about you. He’s like, ‘Nicely, Kate can maintain her breath for seven minutes.’ And he goes, ‘Sigourney got here in second with virtually six minutes. Zoe allegedly says that she did it for 5.’ And I’m like, ‘I did it for 5!’”

Their two movies this yr, Winslet’s “Lee” and Saldaña’s “Emilia Pérez,” are fairly totally different from Cameron’s otherworldly blockbusters. In “Lee,” Winslet performs struggle photographer Lee Miller, who determinedly broke down gender boundaries to shoot harrowing photos throughout World Struggle II. In “Emilia Pérez,” Saldaña stars as Rita, an legal professional in Mexico who turns into enmeshed with Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón), first to assist along with her gender transition after which to information her by way of making amends for the sins she dedicated because the chief of a drug cartel — all in an opera format.

The 2 outdated buddies, in different phrases, have so much to debate.

KATE WINSLET: Once I was advised that I used to be going to be talking with you right now, my coronary heart simply jumped for pleasure. Not solely as a result of I’m so excited to speak to you about your film, however since you are simply radiance and light-weight, and it’s such a pleasure to have correct time with you — which we in all probability won’t ever get to have once more!

ZOE SALDAÑA: I really feel the identical about you. I noticed “Lee” — I used to be deeply moved. I used to be very emotional. There’s one thing actually rewarding about discovering ladies who all through historical past have affected the material of life for the higher. And Lee Miller is somebody that I used to be asking myself, how is it that I don’t find out about her? Thanks for telling her story. However how did this all come collectively?

WINSLET: Thanks for saying that, as a result of the explanation I wished to inform Lee’s story was exactly due to what you simply recognized: You didn’t know who she was. So many individuals don’t know that these pictures they could have seen related to the battle of World Struggle II and the Nazi regime, so many individuals have by no means related the dots and realized that really it was a middle-aged lady who took these photos.

She had been a mannequin in her life for a short interval in her 20s. She had been outlined that manner — outlined by way of the male gaze — usually described alongside her love life. And it simply drove me loopy, as a result of her life was a lot past that.

SALDAÑA: Completely.

WINSLET: We are attempting to stay our lives as ladies, redefining femininity to imply resilience and energy and braveness and compassion. And that to me is who Lee was. I’d been to an exhibition of hers within the early 2000s in Edinburgh, after which years later, some buddies of mine known as me who work in an public sale home, and so they stated, “This desk was the kitchen desk within the dwelling of [Lee’s] household.” They understand how a lot I like to prepare dinner and recognize household mealtimes. And Lee was an incredible prepare dinner, and she or he would prepare dinner all these fantastic meals, and they might have these fantastic occasions round this desk. I purchased this desk.

SALDAÑA: Oh, wow.

WINSLET: I sat down on the desk, and I assumed, “Why hasn’t anybody made a film about Lee Miller?”

SALDAÑA: How way back was that?

WINSLET: That was in 2015. This was the primary time that I’ve actively actually produced one thing proper from the very starting, discovering the writers, actually crafting the story — as a result of Lee lived so many lives all through her life. However this specific decade was when she went to struggle as a flawed, middle-aged lady, and paid an enormous emotional worth for the issues that she witnessed.

We had a feminine director on “Lee,” Ellen Kuras, who has been a much-revered cinematographer her entire life. I did “Everlasting Sunshine of the Spotless Thoughts” along with her years in the past, in 2003. And when it got here to the purpose of “The script is prepared; let’s exit to administrators,” I simply all of the sudden realized it might probably’t be a person. It may possibly’t be a person! I used to be so immersed in Lee’s world, having finely tuned and constructed this story by way of the screenplay and that 10 years that we cowl. I spoke to Ellen — I knew that she had moved into directing tv, however I additionally knew that she hadn’t directed her first characteristic but. And I assumed, “OK, girly, it’s time. Include me.”

However let me ask you about this extraordinary film, “Emilia Pérez,” through which you play Rita. I had intentionally not learn something understanding I used to be coming to talk to you. And so the second you open your mouth and your stunning singing voice comes out, I’m like, “Sure! She’s accomplished a musical!” I simply was so excited as a result of, in fact, I’ve heard you sing on set, on “Avatar” — one of many stuff you do hovering across the dressing room block. How did the challenge come to you?

SALDAÑA: I want I might say that it was by way of a desk that I purchased on public sale.

WINSLET: No! You don’t! As a result of you then’d be telling the desk story again and again. Inform me.

SALDAÑA: It was by way of my brokers. However I’ve to say that it’s by way of the facility of manifestation. I’ve at all times been a bit of bit cynical concerning the relationship that we have now with the universe, and but the universe has at all times been speaking to me instantly every time I’ve sought direct recommendation and steerage. And these movies, “Avatar,” “Star Trek,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” they gave me a lot. However as they grew to become tremendous profitable and have become machines and worldwide phenomenons, all that was taking place whereas I used to be additionally getting married and beginning my household. So there was little or no time for me to …

WINSLET: … be an artist.

SALDAÑA: … begin stretching my muscle tissue once more and problem myself. You end up simply filled with frustration, and also you don’t know the place to place it. I had a dialog with my brokers, and we wrote down a listing of nice administrators — a really small listing. They known as me up and so they stated, “Jacques Audiard is casting for his subsequent film, and it’s going to be in Spanish, and it’s an opera and it takes place in Mexico, and we actually do consider there’s a component that’s simply excellent for you.”

Your self-sabotage comes up. Instantly, it’s like, “Oh, wait, wait, wait. You’re not Mexican. Oh, wait, wait, wait. You may’t sing, you’ll be able to’t dance, you’ll be able to’t do that.” And I used to be like, “Nicely, however I need to meet him. I simply need to have a dialog with him.” And we had a Zoom, and it was such an incredible connection that I had with Jacques.

WINSLET: He’s an excellent director. My God. The deeper you dig and the extra layers of the onion that you just peel away. And to show that into opera, it was extraordinary to me.

SALDAÑA: It was stunning. It was good. And people are phrases that I don’t like to make use of that a lot in what we do, however I do consider that Jacques’ determination to make this a musical, to make this operatic, was good within the sense that these ladies wanted to have these breaths of tune and dance so as so that you can actually get to really feel them and get to know them. I like the truth that he wasn’t afraid of how complicated they had been, and these are ladies with actually broken lives — very fragile, very determined. And but they had been deserving of affection. They had been deserving of freedom of their journey. And I hadn’t seen that in a very long time.

WINSLET: However the mixture, as properly, of fragility and vulnerability within the face of worry and phenomenal braveness — that form of “OK, fuck you, world! I can do that, and I can do it on my own.” It form of made me suppose, “OK, cling on a second. Rita and Lee, fairly related in that sense of simply ‘I’m not going to be deterred by that factor or that factor or that factor. I’m going to go after the factor I consider in.’” And it’s so true to now! However all framed on this implausible, virtually at occasions heist-style opera. I cherished it a lot.

Manufacturing: Emily Ullrich; Lighting Director: Max Bernetz; Set Path: Gille Mills