Zoe Saldaña doesn’t get many easy days as Joe McNamara in Lioness. Between close-quarters fights, tactical raids, heavy gear and long action sequences, the role asks far more of her physically than simply looking the part.
And at 48, Saldaña is still doing much of that demanding work on camera herself. The Zoe Saldaña Lioness workout behind it is surprisingly practical and built around short workouts, strength, years of dance training and the tactical preparation needed to make Joe move like someone who actually belongs in the field.
Zoe Saldaña Lioness Workout: She Doesn’t Spend Hours in the Gym
You might expect Saldaña to have some exhausting two-hour daily workout considering the shape she stays in for action roles. That’s not really how she has described her routine.
Saldaña has three children and a filming schedule that doesn’t leave much room for living in the gym. She told Entertainment Tonight that she sometimes has only around 20 minutes to exercise, so she makes those minutes count.
Her workouts have included high-intensity intervals along with core, resistance and mobility work. It’s a fairly practical approach: get the heart rate up, work several areas of the body and get on with the rest of the day.
Also Read : Why Was Joe Kidnapped in ‘Lioness’ Season 3? Her Brutal Premiere Attack Explained
‘Lioness’ Adds a Very Different Kind of Training
Being fit doesn’t automatically make someone look like a CIA operative.
One of the trickier parts of Lioness is that Joe, Cruz and the tactical team aren’t supposed to look as though they learned to handle weapons a week before filming. Their movements need to feel familiar.
That’s where the show’s tactical preparation comes in.
The cast has trained around weapons, room-clearing movements and the weight of the equipment they use during missions. Holding a rifle in ready positions for extended periods is tiring enough on its own. Add a tactical vest, repeated takes and quick movements through a set, and an action scene becomes a workout long before the fighting starts.
Her Dance Background Helps More Than You Might Think
Saldaña had one advantage before she ever stepped onto the Lioness set: she was a dancer.
She studied ballet and other forms of dance when she was younger, and that background has turned out to be remarkably useful during her action career.
Fight choreography is choreography, after all.
A screen fight has timing, marks and a sequence that has to be repeated almost exactly. Saldaña has spoken about using that understanding of movement when approaching physical scenes. A punch, block or fall might look messy on screen, but the actors performing it can’t actually be messy.
That probably explains some of the fluidity in Joe’s fights. Saldaña isn’t simply trying to hit harder. She knows how to learn a physical sequence and repeat it consistently, something she had been doing long before she became an action star.
Does Zoe Saldaña Do Her Own Stunts
It’s easy to watch one of Joe’s fights and wonder, does Zoe Saldaña do her own stunts in Lioness?
She does a significant amount of the physical performance and fight choreography herself, although stunt professionals are still involved when a sequence requires specialist work or carries greater risk.
Her regular strength work helps here too. Saldaña has been seen incorporating exercises such as deadlifts and core training into her workouts, both useful for the stability and control needed in physical scenes.
Why Joe’s Physicality Works So Well in ‘Lioness’
What I find more convincing about Saldaña as Joe isn’t that she looks exceptionally muscular or performs the flashiest action.
It’s that Joe rarely looks uncomfortable doing her job.
Watch the smaller movements: the way she holds a weapon, changes direction or moves into a room with the team. Those details are easy to overlook, which is probably the point. If the preparation is working, viewers shouldn’t be thinking about Saldaña’s training while watching Joe.
‘Lioness’ Isn’t Zoe Saldaña’s First Action Role
Saldaña came to Lioness with years of action experience. She played Neytiri in Avatar, Gamora across the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers films, and took on an especially physical role as assassin Cataleya in Colombiana.
That background matters to the Zoe Saldaña Lioness training. Years of fight choreography, stunt work and dance gave her a strong physical foundation before she ever stepped into Joe McNamara’s tactical gear.
Beyond Joe McNamara in ‘Lioness’
For all the intensity that comes with playing Joe McNamara, Saldaña’s life away from Lioness looks very different. She is raising three sons while juggling the schedules that come with major films and a physically demanding television series.
That contrast makes her approach to the role more interesting. There isn’t unlimited time to train, recover or prepare for the next action sequence. Sometimes, as Saldaña has acknowledged, she simply has to fit exercise into the time she has.
On screen, Joe may spend her days dealing with covert operations and life-or-death decisions. Saldaña finishes filming and goes back to being a mother. Managing both may be the tougher balancing act of the two.