Zoe Saldana credits Steven Spielberg with 'restoring her faith' in films

Zoe Saldana has credited Steven Spielberg with "restoring her faith" in the film industry after she had a "bad experience" on 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

The 46-year-old 'Avatar' actress appeared in 2003 blockbuster 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' - directed by Gore Verbinski - and she had a tough time on set which almost caused her to "tip overboard".

Speaking during a Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday (12.10.14), Zoe explained: "I knew with that experience the kind of people that I wanted to work with.

"The crew and the cast, they’re 99 per cent of the time super marvellous. But if the studio and the producers and the director, they’re not leading with kindness and awareness and consideration, then that big of a production can become a really bad experience and you may tip overboard. And I kind of did."

Her next project was 'The Terminal' and she says working with Spielberg eight months after finishing 'Pirates' helped her get back on track.

She said: "I worked with Steven Spielberg eight months later, and he restored my faith that big can also be great."

Zoe added she felt "so good and so safe" and revealed the director would play music between scenes to help everyone feel "synchronised and on the same page".

She also recalled some wise advice the director gave her, adding: "[He said] 'In order for you to know where you are, you have to know where you came from'."

Zoe previously opened up about her time on the 'Pirates' franchise in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, revealing the "pace" of the big budget production was "a little too fast" for her.

She explained: "It was my first exposure to a major Hollywood mega movie, where there were just so many actors and so many producers and so many crew members.

"We were shooting in different locations, and the environments were not that agreeable, sometimes, to our shoot days. I was very young, and it was just a little too big for me, and the pace of it was a little too fast."

She added: "I walked away not really having a good experience from it overall. I felt like I was lost in the trenches of it a great deal, and I just didn’t feel like that was okay."