Zoe Saldaña & Rachel Nichols: Star Trek Scene (2009)

Before she was blue and before she was green, Zoe Saldaña was a Starfleet cadet in her underwear, and the franchise has never quite recovered.

Star Trek (2009): Uhura and Gaila’s room (1m06s)

What happens in Star Trek

J.J. Abrams rebooted the whole enterprise (sorry) in 2009, and her Nyota Uhura is an Academy cadet who’s plainly the sharpest person in any room she walks into. Abrams asked for her. She’d never watched the original series, though she had played a Trekkie in The Terminal, and she said yes after his compliment: “For an actor, that’s all you need, that’s all you want.” Nichelle Nichols, who named the character, sat down with her and explained how she’d built Uhura’s background. Saldaña’s mother, a fan, left her voicemails with advice throughout the shoot.

The scene is Uhura off duty with her roommate Gaila (Rachel Nichols), an Orion cadet, both of them down to their underwear. It runs about a minute with no nudity, but it’s the one moment the movie lets its most capable officer be young and a little ridiculous. She was 29 when it filmed, between November 2007 and March 2008, and the film went on to earn $385.7 million.

A footnote you couldn’t sell in a screenplay: Steven Spielberg had taught her the Vulcan salute five years earlier, while directing her in The Terminal.

It’s tenth on our Zoe Saldaña guide. For another two-hander from that same era, see her After Sex scene with Mila Kunis.