Zoe Saldana has opened up about her experiences working with Ben Affleck on his latest directorial venture 'Live By Night'; a gangster thriller in which he also stars set in the 1920s; and it's the best performance she reckons she's given in years. 

Live By NightZoe Saldana stars alongside Ben Affleck in 'Live By Night'

According to Zoe Saldana, not all directors enjoy the process of working with actors. It might sound crazy, but this can really affect how an actor performs on set. Zoe didn't have to worry about that though because Ben Affleck was super understanding - given that he's an actor first.

'I've worked with actors that are directors before and I've relatively had good experiences, but working with Ben made it wonderful', she revealed. 'He's very empathetic; starting out as an actor himself, he understands the process that actors go through, he understands the time that sometimes actors may need and he likes actors.'

Watch the trailer for 'Live By Night':


 

Over the course of her 18 year career, Zoe has had her share of disappointing experiences with uncaring directors. 'I know what it's like to work with a director that doesn't care for actors, and you feel pretty bad when you're leaving work', she confessed. 'I get to look at 'Live By Night' and this is the happiest, after 'Avatar', that I've been with my performance because I felt safe and I felt supported by my director.'

Personally, we've loved Zoe's bad-ass roles in the likes of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Star Trek', but she was exploring a different side to her acting with her role as Graciela in 'Live By Night'. 'I come from doing so many kick-ass movies, so to play a female that was very mature and very accepting with her feelings and being very unconditional with the person that she's in love with, it's something that I had not played before so it was a challenge for me', she added.

'Live By Night' premiered in Los Angeles last night (January 9th 2017).