After winning her first Golden Globe for her performance in “Emilia Perez,” Zoe Saldaña is expressing gratitude for the filmmakers who have believed in her over the course of her career spanning 25 years.

In the press room following the awards ceremony, Saldaña shared that she heard from “Avatar” director James Cameron following her big win. “I was sitting in the audience, and I received a message from James Cameron, who’s somewhere in New Zealand right now, cutting ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash.’ And he, after all these years, believes in me. So that, to me, nourishes my desire to continue growing as an artist.”

Cameron was effusive of the actor in an interview for her October Variety cover story: “I’ve worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a caliber less than that,” he said. “But because in my film she’s playing a ‘CG character,...