Zoë Saldana Shares How Having Kids Helps to Keep Her 'Out of Trouble' with Aging

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic

Zoē Saldanais sharing her best anti-aging secret.Speaking to PEOPLE about her upcoming role in theReese Witherspoon-producedNetflixseriesFrom Scratch, the mom of three attributes having kids to help keep her youthful.After noting that Saldana looks nearly the same inFrom Scratchas she did two decades ago in her filmCenter Stage, the actress teases, “It’s like Benjamin Button, I’ll take that as a compliment.““I think having children keeps me out of trouble a lot,” she continues. “I go to bed early. I eat better. I sleep longer sometimes. I’m back to sleeping.““I was having a lot of problems with my sleep. Whereas right before I had them, I was very much of the policy of work hard, play hard,” she explains. “And I loved my life like that. But I feel like having children happened at the right time for me because in your mid-thirties to late thirties, early forties, that’s when you go to bed thinking that you’re one thing, and you wake up feeling like something else.““And I started having kids during that time. So that saved me from a lot,” she adds.Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.Saldana and husband Marco Perego are parents to twin boysCy Aridio and Bowie Ezio, 7, plus their 5-year-old little brotherZen Anton Hilario.TheAvataractress, 44, chatted with PEOPLE back in 2020 about being a mom to all three boys.“The third one was supposed to be [a daughter] and then my husband just doesn’t give any girls,” Saldana joked. “I would have been greatas a mother of daughters, butthe universe, in its irony, and how I became a mom of three boys in the post-#MeToo movement [means] I’m accepting the challenge.“Saldana said she was “having such a wonderful time” as a mom of sons, “because that means I get to witness and really nurture a young boy before he turns into a man, and I think that that’s the task for us mothers, as well.“Teaching her sons not to conform to gender stereotypes, theactress said it has “been a treat because allowing your boys to be vulnerable and sensible and not just allowing them to fight physically because, ‘Oh, boys will be boys’ — those kinds of terms just don’t exist in our home.""‘Daddy’s little girl’and ‘Mama’s boys,’ we don’t have that,” Saldana added at the time. “My husband is the father and I’m the mother, but we are [both active] participants in the upbringing of [our kids] and that’s really important.“From Scratchpremiered Oct. 21 on Netflix.

Zoē Saldanais sharing her best anti-aging secret.

Speaking to PEOPLE about her upcoming role in theReese Witherspoon-producedNetflixseriesFrom Scratch, the mom of three attributes having kids to help keep her youthful.

After noting that Saldana looks nearly the same inFrom Scratchas she did two decades ago in her filmCenter Stage, the actress teases, “It’s like Benjamin Button, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I think having children keeps me out of trouble a lot,” she continues. “I go to bed early. I eat better. I sleep longer sometimes. I’m back to sleeping.”

“I was having a lot of problems with my sleep. Whereas right before I had them, I was very much of the policy of work hard, play hard,” she explains. “And I loved my life like that. But I feel like having children happened at the right time for me because in your mid-thirties to late thirties, early forties, that’s when you go to bed thinking that you’re one thing, and you wake up feeling like something else.”

“And I started having kids during that time. So that saved me from a lot,” she adds.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Saldana and husband Marco Perego are parents to twin boysCy Aridio and Bowie Ezio, 7, plus their 5-year-old little brotherZen Anton Hilario.

TheAvataractress, 44, chatted with PEOPLE back in 2020 about being a mom to all three boys.

“The third one was supposed to be [a daughter] and then my husband just doesn’t give any girls,” Saldana joked. “I would have been greatas a mother of daughters, butthe universe, in its irony, and how I became a mom of three boys in the post-#MeToo movement [means] I’m accepting the challenge.”

Saldana said she was “having such a wonderful time” as a mom of sons, “because that means I get to witness and really nurture a young boy before he turns into a man, and I think that that’s the task for us mothers, as well.”

Teaching her sons not to conform to gender stereotypes, theactress said it has “been a treat because allowing your boys to be vulnerable and sensible and not just allowing them to fight physically because, ‘Oh, boys will be boys’ — those kinds of terms just don’t exist in our home.”

“‘Daddy’s little girl’and ‘Mama’s boys,’ we don’t have that,” Saldana added at the time. “My husband is the father and I’m the mother, but we are [both active] participants in the upbringing of [our kids] and that’s really important.”

From Scratchpremiered Oct. 21 on Netflix.

source: people.com