Zoe Saldaña's former manager advised her to change her name for Center Stage

Zoe Saldaña can recall some of the worst advice she ever received as an actress, and it was during her time in the film Center Stage.

In EW's latest edition of Bold School, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar star discusses the moment her former manager advised her to change her name. She didn't take the suggestion as hurtful.

"When I did Center Stage, I remember being discouraged by my management at that time to use my name," Saldaña says, before clarifying, "but their intention was never for me to stop being who I was. They celebrated who I was."

She continues, "But my manager at the time was a former singer and a ballroom performer, and she did change her name as well, when she was a teenager back in the '60s, I believe. And she said it's what everybody does."

Today, she says, that kind of advice would be considered poor. "That was her doing the best that she wanted for me, but I still knew that I liked my name."

Saldaña now stars in The Adam Project alongside Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Garner. She plays Laura, a time-traveling pilot from the year 2050 who's stuck in the past. Her husband, Adam (Reynolds), portals back to find her and stumbles into his younger kid self (Walker Scobell).

The best advice she ever received? Saldaña credits both Steven Spielberg, her director on The Terminal, and James Cameron, her director on Avatar.

Spielberg told her, "In order for you to know where you're going, you must always know where you came from."

Cameron, meanwhile, was less poetic, saying, "Girl, you gotta know how to run!" Apparently, as a former ballerina, Saldaña had been discouraged from running to preserve her feet — and it showed on camera while she shot Avatar.

The Adam Project is streaming now on Netflix. Watch the full Bold School video above.

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