Zoe Saldana On Getting ‘Pretty’ In Floral Prints & Her 10-Year-Old Prada Pumps

Zoe Saldana may be a red carpet stunner, but the butt-kicking “Avatar” star said looking “pretty” isn’t part of her vocabulary.

“Pretty is the last word you would think of,” she told the May issue of Self magazine of her personal style. “Look in my closet and you’ll see things that are elegant, sexy, tomboyish, sophisticated, beautiful, aggressive. It’s harsh. It’s a lot of black. I’ve never really been that feminine.”

However, the star embraced a softer style in a pictorial for the mag, trying 11 different floral-print dresses on a beach in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – a shoot so steamy, a boat of paparazzi tried to join in.

“These florals tell a story. They aren’t just little dresses that you wear when you go some place hot,” said Zoe, who’s also starring in this month’s action-oriented “The Losers” and the comedy “Death at a Funeral.” “The hot-pink one drove me insane because I was channeling that South Beach-looking-for-a-millionaire-husband-from-Switzerland kind of thing. I live in constant storytelling mode.”

While black might be a staple of her wardrobe, Zoe said she does break out the color on the red carpet once in a while.

“Sometimes you’re sexy confident or you’re aggressive confident,” she said. “When I’m sexy confident, I always want to wear red pumps.”

Zoe added that she’s a Prada gal, but her recent ascent to the A-list hasn’t made her throw out her favorite pair, which is 10 years old.

“The more disheveled they got, the more I loved them,” she said. “My mom said, ‘Zoe, honestly, you can wear boots that are worn, but red heels? It just looks wrong,’ But I haven’t thrown them away yet. As long as I’m not out with my mom, I will wear them!”

Like her bold on-screen characters, Zoe said she likes to take chances with her style.

“With fashion, you would be crazy to play it safe all the time,” she said. “Try to please everybody? No! I just want to please me.”