Zazie Beetz, it’s a name that was meant to be famous, and we’re not surprised the actress is ‘making a name for herself,’ with her incredible acting, down to earth attitude and hilarious Instagram page. We enjoy seeing her in Atlanta and even more as the best casting choice the Deadpool series has made since they *chose Ryan Reynolds. There’s more to Zazie than meets the eye, and the eye does not go wanting.
1. Stats
Before we get to the fun stuff, here are a few of her basic stats that you may not have been aware of.
- Full Name: Zazie Olivia Beetz
- Birthday: June 1, 1991 (age 27)
- Place of Birth: Mitte, Berlin, Germany
- Height: 5’6
2. DIY Dynamo
Zazie is more than just a pretty face, she’s a lover of DIY projects and always keeping busy with some new and interesting thing. She’s posted pictures of herself making kombucha and even her own body butter on her Instagram. Perhaps this lends to her down to earth air. She seems like the sort of person we’d see at our weekly yoga class. Despite appearances, she says she’s not totally locked into one brand identity just yet, and she feels like she’s still experimenting around trying things out so perhaps it’s better if we call her ‘evolving,’ rather than dropping labels on her.
3. Role With It
You may know her from Twilight, or Atlanta, or maybe just Deadpool, but this actress has an excellent filmography to her name. We won’t list them all here, but a few notable examples include Sam in High Flying Bird, Victoria in the movie Wolves and Astrid in Slice. With fifteen movies and four TV shows in her repertoire already, plus four movies already in post-production, she’s getting good screen time, even if we can’t get enough.
4. Universe Hopping
Not very many people can claim to have the chance to hop from one universe to the next. Those that do mostly need a therapist, but not Zazzie. She has gone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the rival DC Universe. Later this year you can see her play a young, single mother in the Batman prequel Joker. She’ll play alongside Joaquin Phoenix, who looks to be an excellent choice for filling those famous clown shoes. Despite the occasional grudging crossover or joke, it’s rare for the feuding universes to share anything, so it’s only fair that when they do, it’s something like a talented actress. We’re certainly looking forward to seeing another darkly modern Batman spinoff, and using Zazie’s phenomenal talent makes it that much better.
5. She’s a Fan of Opera
Culture is one of those things you never have trouble finding in big cities like New York, Atlanta, and LA. Maybe one of the best things about being bi-coastal is the entertainment options. Zazie was particularly inspired by a trip to see Madame Butterfly live.
6. Future Plans
For all that she has a great career in film and TV, Zazie is open to pursuing other avenues of employment in the future. More than once she has mentioned her desire to pursue becoming a doula. Working with pregnant mothers may not seem as glamorous as Hollywood, but it shows a lot of heart. You have to love someone who knows where their passions lie, especially when it involves helping people and bringing healthy babies into the world.
7. Not All Peachy Keen
Not every actor or actress has it easy; they are, after all, people just like the rest of us. They brush their teeth, and sweat and they are subject to all the usual human difficulties, plus paparazzi. Zazzie has mentioned that she suffers from bouts of anxiety and imposter syndrome. She sometimes doesn’t feel worthy of all the praise, and it can make her very uncomfortable.
8. Guilty Pleasure
Everyone has secrets, guilty pleasures, and Zazie is no exception. She has a deep love of bananas with Nutella. So much so that she rarely eats a banana without the decadent (and calorie-packed) chocolate hazelnut spread on top.
9. No Twitter At All
In the era of the Tweeters, it’s strange and a little refreshing to see a star that doesn’t even have a Twitter account. Fans take her name and several variations of it, at least one of whom is entirely invested in begging Zazie to get a Twitter account of her very own. We find that sweetly endearing, though with four movies coming out we totally understand why she doesn’t have time for every social media option out there.
10. Crazy Cat Lady in Training?
One of the more random facts about Zazie is that she has a cat and is single (as far as we know). We don’t like to pry into anyone’s business, we’ll leave that to TMZ and the National Enquirer, but for those with celebrity crushes on her, at least you can hold out that hope for a little longer. Whether she dates at all, and regardless of who she might choose, we love her.
11. Personal History
Unlike many actors and actresses who come from Hollywood families, Zazie’s parents are just ordinary people. Her father is a cabinet maker, and her mother is a social worker. She did spend her early life in Germany where she was born, but the family moved to the USA not long after she reached school age. She doesn’t tend to let a whole lot of personal detail out into the public eye, but we do know she’s an only child, and clearly her international heritage and having regular parents helped her become the cool and seemingly well-rounded individual she is today.
12. Food Fearless
When you look at her feed on Instagram, several things stand out, but one of the most noteworthy is that Zazie is not afraid to eat on camera. She seems to take a more than average interest in posting videos of herself eating. We don’t know if she does it out of a sense of theatrical irony, a love of food or to promote an anti-Hollywood body image that includes having real food when you’re hungry, but either way, we find it interesting. Perhaps only because she finds it interesting, but also because it seems like so many female celebrities develop eating disorders and it’s pretty clear that the stunning Zazie Beetz will not be among them. We admire that.
13. PSA
If you don’t know what “Net neutrality,” means, then you probably should because it affects you if you’re reading this. There’s no better way to find out than by letting the incomparable Zazie Beetz tell you all about it. That’s right, she did a PSA about this vital topic. Sadly, it hasn’t even been seen by a hundred thousand people as of the date this article came out.
14. Celebrity Crush… No the Other Kind
Zazie Beetz Effect. pic.twitter.com/Kvtyk1aI7O
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) March 9, 2017
We know Ryan Reynolds is happily married and has kids, but we still think he has a slight crush on his Deadpool co-star. He’s flattering every time he tweets about her, not in a creepy way, he just clearly likes her a lot. We don’t want to start any untrue rumors, so we’re going to liken it to a bromance, except Zazie is female. Still, it’s cool that she’s so well liked by someone she worked with.
15. Goofy to the Core
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCLxaOTlF33/
You have to laugh at yourself sometimes. Zazie is one of those people who always seems to have a sense of humor about herself. You’ll frequently find her posting silly faces and amusing moments from her life. Clearly, she appreciates the lighter side of life.
16. International Experience
In addition to her time in her birth country (Germany), the actress has spent time living in another country as well. In fact, she lived somewhere many people dream of visiting. Zazie lived in Paris for a year and, of course, she loved it. Most people in their 20s can’t claim to have lived in three countries, but perhaps that’s what makes her seem so level headed and fun, she knows how to talk to and deal with people from all over.
17. Polyglot
It goes without saying, though we’ll mention it anyway, that when you grow up in Germany, you learn to speak German. Zazie attended both Kindergarten and elementary school in Berlin. She was also raised in Manhattan (Uptown). At home, her family speaks both German and English. That’s not all. She also attended Skidmore College where she earned a Bachelors degree in French.
18. That Hair (We love it!)
It seems silly, but people have questioned whether the actress wore a wig in Deadpool. The answer is absolutely not. She rocks that gorgeous ‘fro in real life and spends up to forty-five minutes a night putting her hair up in Bantu knots. Some diehard fans of Marvel comics raised a stink over her hair among other things, but we’ll get to that in a moment. As far as we’re concerned, we hope she keeps that gorgeous natural hair and never lets anyone convince her to change it.
19. Controversial
You know you’ve made it when people freak out over something you do and get rude. While most people felt (and continue to feel) that Zazie was a perfect choice for the role of Domino, a boisterous and obnoxious portion of Marvel fans were upset about the casting choice because the original Domino was white (not the skin tone, the actual color) with a black spot over her eye and mostly straight hair. Fans didn’t freak out like this when they updated the X-Men and got rid of the yellow spandex on Wolverine. They haven’t raised this much of a stink over having an Aquaman who’s half Hawaiian and doesn’t wear green pants. Bringing classic characters into modern cinema means you just have to live with a bit more variety, and it’s about time.
We think she looks spectacular and rocks that hair so well it’s not even fair. If it’s acceptable to paint a normal person clown white, or a tan person bright blue, then there’s no justifying the objection here. We get that some purists want every character to be exactly like their favorite comic book version of a character, but that’s hardly realistic. Given the fact that Marvel creator Stan Lee thought that Domino had the best superpower of them all, and he didn’t object to the casting, maybe people should let the vaguely racist complaint go and accept that Zazie was the only actress with the talent and luck to get that role.
20. … And She’ll Keep Doing It
In spite of the, not inconsiderable, complaints from some rude fans, Zazie is Domino. What’s more, she’s going to continue being Domino for a nice long time. She has a three-film deal to play the luckiest hero on earth. We can’t wait to see her in X-Force, or whatever the next two movies are. Though no dates have been announced, there was an unconfirmed rumor that another movie began filming in 2018. We doubt it, given how busy Zazie has been, but we’re sure to see more of her soon.
Final Thoughts
It’s tough to sum up someone like Zazie Beetz, and she seems to want to avoid getting pigeonholed, so we’ll stick to the easy stuff. She’s gorgeous, she’s talented, she’s well-traveled and funny, so there’s a lot to love. On top of that, she has the best name and the best hair we’ve seen on the silver screen in a long time. Whatever she does next, we’ll be there on opening night.
*To be fair Ryan helped produce Deadpool and persistently campaigned for the film(s) to be made in the first place, which is one of the many reasons we love him, but this isn’t his story.
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