lucky7 The Sacrifices of Zoe Saldaña

When Zoe Saldaña first moved to California, she made a pilgrimage to the Hollywood sign, expecting some awe-inspiring, mystical totem. What she found, to her dismay, was just a sign. No more, no less.

“I was trying to touch Hollywood, and I couldn’t — it’s like a ghost,” she said. “But every day you wake up with that anxiety that you’re going to go touch it, and it’s not there.”

If Hollywood could be grabbed hold of, there are few actors you’d expect to have a better grip on it than Saldaña. She has starred in the three highest-grossing movies of all time: “Avatar” and the sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water,” in which she played the fierce alien Neytiri, and “Avengers: Endgame,” the Marvel team-up that featured her “Guardians of the Galaxy” character Gamora. If those weren’t enough, she’s also got three “Star Trek” films under her belt, too. (Outer space may be vast, but Zoe Saldaña knows it like it’s her backyard.)

In this modern era of franchise moviemaking, the 46-year-old actress has earned plenty of capital, but one thing she didn’t have until now is a starring vehicle like “Emilia Pérez,” which scored 10 Golden Globe nominations including a supporting-actress nod for Saldaña. Then again, “Emilia Pérez” would be an outlier in any actor’s filmography simply because there are no other movies like it: Directed by Jacques Audiard, it’s a gritty crime drama that also happens to be a musical.

Saldaña stars in the Netflix film as Rita, a worn-down Mexico City lawyer who becomes the personal fixer for the former drug lord Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón). A bargain is struck: If Rita can work in secret to help Emilia undergo gender-confirmation surgery, she’ll be financially compensated beyond her wildest dreams. But even as Rita gains entry to the highest echelons of society, she still carries a resentment that comes to a head with “El Mal,” a scorching song-and-dance number in which she excoriates the hypocritical rich at a charity gala.

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Just like occasional lapses in memory, these issues can also be attributed to other age- or health-related changes (or just a bad day), so experts emphasized that they aren’t necessarily red flags for dementia in isolation. But, especially in combination, they might be a sign that it’s time to see a doctor.

The proportion of Black first-year students enrolled at Harvard this fall has declined to 14 percent from 18 percent last year, according to data released by the institution on Wednesday — a dip smaller than the school had predicted, but still significant.

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