USA TODAY International Edition
From A to Zazie, Beetz is ‘Deadpool 2’ breakout
NEW YORK – After Deadpool 2, more people will know the name Zazie Beetz. But first, they’ll want to learn how to say it.
“Zay-zee is pretty offensive to me,” jokes Beetz, whose name is pronounced Zah-see. “I just get nicknames very quickly: Za, Zaza, Z, Zoboomafoo. It runs the gamut.”
In Deadpool 2 (in theaters Friday), the actress plays the sardonic Domino, an always-lucky hired gun who’s recruited by Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) for his X-Force team to save a flamethrowing teen mutant (Julian Dennison) from breaking bad.
Looking unflappably cool as Domino dodges whizzing bullets and snaps the limbs of her adversaries, Beetz is the movie’s “captivating standout,” says USA TODAY movie critic Brian Truitt, while others on Twitter have called for the character to get her own spinoff film. (To which co-writer Paul Wernick responds, “I don’t see why not.”)
Beetz, 26, broke out in 2016 on FX’s Emmy-winning show Atlanta as Van, a young mother and on-and-off girlfriend of cash-strapped rap manager Earn (Donald Glover). With a short résumé of mostly dramatic roles in low-budget projects until now, “I never really pictured (a superhero movie) would be my trajectory,” she says. “I was nervous, because you sign onto a franchise and you’re contracted with them to continue on with the story, and you don’t really know what you’re signing up for. But I liked the idea of introducing the live-action version of a character,” particularly one who’s depicted as having chalk-white skin and straight hair in comic books.
Reynolds and producers encouraged Beetz to wear her hair natural for the role, which is a “wonderful opportunity to showcase my hair texture on a mainstream platform,” says the actress, who is half-black.
Beetz trained for two months before shooting in Vancouver, devoting four hours a day to cardio, weight training and mixed martial arts. Things only got more intense once she slipped into Domino’s tight, “wildly impractical” leather bodysuit: She fainted during one fight sequence, and was burned by a stray shell casing during a shootout, which left a scar on her chest.
That level of commitment combined
“I was a musical/Disney girl growing up ... much more in that direction than the comic-book universe.” Zazie Beetz
with charisma is what drew co-writer Rhett Reese to her.
“She can really keep up with Ryan, which is not an easy task,” Reese says. “She’s so cool and inspirational, in the sense that she (embodies) such a fun and awesome character.”
That Beetz already has been recognized on the street for Deadpool 2 is surreal to the actress, who was born in Berlin but has lived in New York most of her life. In middle school, her idea of a “superhero movie” was Charlie’s Angels.
“I was a musical/Disney girl growing up,” Beetz says. “I liked Mulan, Pocahontas, The Sound of Music, Singin’ in the Rain — I was much more in that direction than the comic-book universe.”
She graduated from New York’s LaGuardia High School, before getting a bachelor’s degree in French from Skidmore College.
Although a third season of Atlanta hasn’t been announced, Beetz has more films on her plate in the meantime. Among them: drama Sollers Point (also in theaters); Chance the Rapper horror flick Slice (expected this year); sci-fi movie Pale Blue Dot; and a mystery with Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson.
“People have been asking me if I can still take the subway, and I can now. But I’m a little bit mourning that loss right now, walking around like, ‘This could be my last day not having to wear sunglasses or something.’ ”