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Actress Zoe Saldana revealed that she regrets ever starring as Nina Simone in writer/director Cynthia Mort’s controversial 2016 biopic, “Nina.” The actress discussed her role — which required a prosthetic nose, fake teeth, and makeup to darken her skin — in a recent Instagram live conversation hosted by B-ese with “Pose” co-creator Steven Canals.

“I should have never played Nina,” Saldana said (via Entertainment Weekly). “I should have done everything in my power, with the leverage that I had 10 years ago — which was a different [amount of] leverage, but it was leverage nonetheless. I should’ve tried everything in my power to cast a Black woman to play an exceptionally perfect Black woman.”

When she was cast in 2012, after replacing Mary J. Blige, Saldana already had mixed feelings about taking on the High Priestess of Soul. But distance from the film and its notoriously bungled production, she said, has led to necessary reflection.

Musicians are natural-born documentary subjects: They say outrageous things, they look fabulous doing it, and they might just let you license their music for free (if they like you). Anyone who rises to rock star level fame is either a tortured soul or a creative genius — or, sometimes, both. The challenge in making a music documentary is to rise above mere hagiography and tell a story most fans have never heard before, which can be tricky when you’re dealing with people as obsessively beloved as Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse.

In some cases, the best stories are discovered behind the scenes: the forgotten backup singers, the recluse who discovers his fame decades later, the brother living in the shadows of the rock star. Whether famous or unknown, there is nothing quite as daring as getting on a stage and singing your guts out — and no creative skill as revered...