2024 worked out so well for Zoe Saldaña that she has gotten a bit superstitious about predicting what’s next. “I don’t want to say exactly what I would want to do or try to find something specific, because then I don’t want to create unrealistic expectations,” the actress told IndieWire over Zoom.

Saldaña happens to be in an extra celebratory mood after her film “Emilia Pérez” and live-action short “Dovecote” (directed by her husband Marco Perego) both made it onto the shortlists for the Oscars 2025. “In one year… we couldn’t have done this if we planned it,” she said.

Her turn as Rita, the passive lawyer sucked into the world of a Mexican drug lord seeking gender-affirming surgery, in the Jacques Audiard-directed “Emilia Pérez,” has specifically been the culmination of things she’s manifested for her career in recent years. “I just felt like, at different times,...