Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘From Scratch’ follows the story of Amy Wheeler, who leaves behind what is considered a safe and secure career to pursue her dreams in a different country. She was all set to study law, but her love for art made her move to Florence, Italy, for a few months and study it instead. Here, she not only decides to completely dedicate herself to a career as an artist but also meets the love of her life, whose artwork is exhibited through the food he makes.
It isn’t just Amy’s ability with pencils and paintbrush that sets her apart; we also find her becoming fluent in Italian over the course of years. Taking on the role of a person with such talents required an actress of a similar caliber. Does this mean that Zoe Saldana shares these talents with Amy? Let’s find out.
Zoe Saldana is a Multilingual Actress
Due to Lino’s Italian heritage, a lot of conversations in ‘From Scratch’ take place in Italian. Over the course of several years, Amy has also become fluent in the language and has conversed with her husband and in-laws. This meant that the actress playing her role had to be fluent in Italian, too, and Zoe Saldana happens to have that talent with languages.
Saldana’s father, Aridio Saldaña, was from the Dominican Republic, while her mother, Asalia Nazario, is from Costa Rica. She grew up with Spanish as her first language, and growing up in America made her fluent in English. French was also a part of Saldana’s household language as a child, and her fluency in French and Spanish helped her understand Italian and Portuguese as well. However, that’s not where Saldana’s connection with Italy ends.
Much like her character in ‘From Scratch,’ Saldana is connected with Italy through marriage. Her husband is Marco Perego, an Italian artist. He was a professional football player; however, a leg injury forced him to give that up. Following this, he moved to New York to pursue a career in the art of painting and sculpting, and soon enough, his career took off. He and Saldana got married in 2013 and took each other’s last name. They have three sons — Zen Anton and twins Cy Aridio and Bowie Ezio.
The couple aims to make their children multi-lingual. Both of them speak Spanish, Italian, and English at home. For Saldana, this is more than just developing her children’s language skills. It is about the importance and appreciation of the different cultures that they come from. “It is a necessity for us to raise our children with our roots so that they can communicate with their grandparents, but also so that they can create some kind of empathy for human beings that do not look like them, and do not sound like them and do not smell like them,” she said.
For Reese Witherspoon, Saldana’s persona and her Italian connection was the reason to cast her as Amy Wheeler in the Netflix production. They were at a dinner where Saldana was with her husband. The couple was switching between languages while talking to each other, and Witherspoon noted the ease with which they did so. She saw a lot of similarities between Amy and Saldana, and she offered her the role.
While Saldana’s fluency in Italian certainly helped her inhabit Amy’s role, it is uncertain whether she shares the same talent in art with her onscreen character. If she has a talent for painting or drawing, she hasn’t exhibited it outside her private life. However, considering that her husband is an accomplished artist, we can assume that Saldana’s received some tips from Marco to better portray Amy’s artistic side on the show.
Read More: Where is From Scratch’s Amy Now? Update on Tembi Locke
