Zoe Saldaña and Taylor Sheridan on the set of Lioness. Paramount+

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When Taylor Sheridan sent her the script to the pilot episode of Lioness six years ago, Zoe Saldaña couldn’t put it down.

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The gripping spy thriller, now streaming its third season on Paramount+, dramatizes a real-life government program that follows CIA agents Joe McNamara and Kaitlyn Meade (played by Saldaña and Nicole Kidman) as they manage female operatives who go undercover to befriend the wives and lovers of suspected terrorists.

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“The first 10 minutes of it when Joe loses the lioness she has embedded, and she has to go back and debrief her boss, who was the one who designed this whole operation. I met these two characters and I went, ‘Who are these women?’” Saldaña, 48, says, seated alongside Kidman during a video call from New York City.

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Saldaña was hooked, but she was also “petrified.” So after she got through an early draft of Sheridan’s gritty story, she went off and made From Scratch, a romantic drama for Netflix.

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“For a year, I didn’t touch it. I thought the project would go away,” she says. But Saldaña couldn’t shake the character of Joe or the world of Lioness.

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“I sent Taylor a text and I asked if he ever cast anyone else in the role … and he said, ‘We’re waiting on you. Whenever you say you’re ready, we’re going to get the whole thing rolling.’”

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Saldaña asked if Kidman was still involved. Glancing at her castmate, she continues, “I said to him, ‘If she’s in, I’m in.’ Four months later we were shooting it.”

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For Kidman, she was instantly drawn into the world crafted by Sheridan’s military-and intelligence-centred story.

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“When Taylor was first telling me about it, I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’ I had never seen something like this before,” Kidman, 59, says.
The two aren’t just close collaborators on the series. They’ll happily trade streaming recommendations.

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When Kidman mentions that she recently binged the Prime Video show Off Campus, Saldaña asks if it’s a guilty pleasure.

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“What is Off Campus ?” she says puzzlingly. “I have three boys and the moment I sit down and turn something on, they take the remote out of my hand, ‘Let’s watch an Adam Sandler movie!’” she continues with a grin. “I have no privacy. But I’m going to watch Off Campus — I promise.”

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The Oscar winners aren’t just stars; they’re also executive producers on the series.

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During the first two seasons, Joe recruited two lionesses to go undercover — Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) and Josie (Genesis Rodriguez). Elizaveta Neretin stars as season 3’s new lioness.

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Saldaña doesn’t offer up much about the direction the eight-episode season is heading in, but the première showed that no one on the team is safe.

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“Their affairs take them into international waters. But since season 2, it has been established that a lot (of their missions) has to do with things happening back at home. That raises a level of danger because it brings it all close to their personal lives,” Saldaña teases.