‘Lioness’ star admits Hollywood success requires ‘painful’ sacrifices

“Lioness” star Zoe Saldaña understands the sacrifices parents make to have careers and a healthy home life.

Ahead of the release of the second season of the Paramount+ show, Saldaña spoke with Fox News Digital about how she is still learning how to balance raising her three sons while maintaining a successful career in Hollywood.

“I wish I knew how to balance it. You know, sometimes there are seasons in which I feel like I have a grip on it. And like, lately, because I’m promoting two wonderful projects that I’m really, really proud of, I’ve just been nonstop and on the road,” the actress, who also has “Emilia Pérez” coming out in November, shared. “These are sacrifices that we all make as a family together, and it is painful.” 

Saldaña continued, “So all we can do is just manage that pain. And that’s always what I try to tell parents, fathers and mothers especially, that they feel sort of torn all the time. Just manage being torn.

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WATCH: ‘Lioness’ star Zoe Saldana admits Hollywood success requires ‘painful’ sacrifices 

“It’s hard because you care about both things in your life, and you don’t want to let either things down, but you want to do it. I also always say remove the word have. You don’t have to do anything that keeps you away from your kids. If you want to do it and then share that experience with them because it’s a different level of understanding when they know that what I’m doing brings me happiness,” Saldaña concluded.

“These are sacrifices that we all make as a family together, and it is painful.” 

— Zoe Saldaña

On “Lioness” – written by “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan – Saldaña stars as Joe while she attempts to balance her personal and professional life as the tip of the CIA’s spear in the war on terror. The series is also based on a U.S. military program.

Saldaña told Fox News Digital that even before taking on this project, she had a “great level of respect” for the U.S. military and their families.

Zoe Saldaña stars as Joe in “Lioness.” (Lynsey Addario/Paramount+)

“I’ve always had a great level of respect for the people and communities that serve. It takes someone to be, you know, utterly selfless to be willing to give up their lives for the lives of others,” she said. 

“What I love is that this show shines the light on women in service and not just women that are on the ground, but women that are in paramilitary intelligence sort of levels that are the ones that are scouting these operations, imagining them, building them, picking the assets and executing them,” Saldaña continued. 

WATCH: Zoe Saldana has always had a ‘great level of respect’ for our troops

To prepare for the role, Saldaña read books and watched videos to try to get her in the right “headspace.”

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“I almost feel like the life of a spy is a person that is constantly calm and constantly paranoid at the same time. Because, you know, if you didn’t feel that way, then what’s the point of being deceitful to enter sort of spaces to understand what’s truly going on in the inside? Right. And Joe is, as somebody who is definitely always, you know, vacillating between stillness and absolute paranoia,” she said, referring to her character on the show.

Nicole Kidman, left, stars alongside Zoe Saldaña in “Lioness.” (Paramount+)

Morgan Freeman also appears in “Lioness.” (Paramount+)

“Lioness” stars Saldaña, as well as Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman. According to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” star, working alongside Kidman and Freeman has only been “a gift.”

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“I’m always deeply surprised every time somebody yells action, and you see these people and, you know, just being the forces of nature that they are, it’s rewarding. It’s a gift. It’s an honor that you get to work with your idols, you know, and the masters that are one of the reasons why you become an actor,” she explained. 

WATCH: Zoe Saldana was ‘deeply surprised’ to star alongside Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman in ‘Lioness’ 

“Right. I’ve always been a fan of Nicole. I’ve always been a fan of Morgan Freeman. To share space with them, to share screen time is awesome,” Saldaña continued.

One of the biggest things she learned working alongside Kidman was that “you have to remain completely present.”

Zoe Saldaña, right, said Nicole Kidman’s acting advice is to “remain completely present.” (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Paramount+)

“Preparation is everything. I mean, it’s a lot of it, but it can’t be everything because you’re having another actor that will be interacting with you. And depending on what they’re giving you, you discover all these different tones to scenes,” she explained. “So to never really be in your head all the time, which I’ve never really been in my head anyway.”

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The first two episodes of season two of “Lioness” premiered on Paramount+ on Oct. 27. Subsequent episodes will be released on a weekly basis, with the third episode debuting Sunday, Nov. 3.