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Director James Cameron is explaining why Sigourney Weaver directed an Avatar: The Way of Water Scene that features her own character.
James Cameron had a good reason for wanting Sigourney Weaver to direct her own scene in Avatar: The Way of Water. While Avatar: The Way of Water focuses on the continued adventures of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) as they forge their own family and their own path in life, it shifts the focus somewhat by centering around the children that Neytiri and Sully bore and adopted along the way. Their children, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), Spider (Jack Champion), and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) all have their own roles to play in the narrative, but Kiri stands tall above the rest.
Kiri’s importance in the narrative of Avatar: The Way of Water is emphasized, as Cameron reveals in a cast and crew Q&A captured on YouTube by Vicky Marx. At one point, Cameron even had Weaver direct her own scene in order to properly capture the performance and character.
Despite her death in Avatar, Weaver’s Grace returns in The Way of Water to interact with her daughter. In the scene, Kiri visits her mother and is able to hold a short conversation with her, and Weaver is actually running double duty, as she is both acting and directing the scene. Check out his quote below:
“I think about the day when she was in the spirit world, and she was meeting her mother, and Sigourney had to quickly switch back and forth between them. Grace is this very competent, scientific person, but also quite loving, and then switch to the daughter who just needed some emotional support. She’s playing a scene with herself! So, we had a very trusted double, Alicia Vela-Bailey, that Sigourney worked with. We did an interesting thing, which was… Alicia would do some of the things that Sig couldn’t physically do like leap up onto the tank like a… 15-year-old Na’Vi gazelle girl. I said, ‘Okay, I don’t want to direct Alicia, I want you to direct Alicia. I wanted you guys to sort of go off and create a relationship of trust, where the things you couldn’t physically do, you could tell Alicia how to do it for you. That was my memory of it. And so I basically said, ‘Okay, that director role, I assign to you,’ so that Alicia would do how you saw Kiri acting and moving, and so on for the bit. Now Sigourney did about 90% of her own stuff, including everything underwater and all that sort of thing. But there are a few things.”
Why Sigourney Weaver Had Trouble With Kiri In Avatar: The Way Of Water
While directing her own scene in Avatar: The Way of Water may have helped Weaver get a hold of her character, it was understandably difficult for the 73-year-old Weaver to play the part of the 14-year-old Kiri. Between difficult stunts that required deep sea diving, parkour, and other difficult stunts, she had to connect to a 14-year-old character. It gave Weaver a crisis of confidence that caused some intense Cameron feedback, as he instructed her to stop complaining about her role as an actor and behave more appropriately on set.
The advice from Cameron may have been hard to swallow, but it helped Weaver ground herself in the role, as did directing her own scene with her stunt double there to help. Unfortunately, while it may have made her more comfortable on set, Cameron’s comments didn’t make her role in Avatar: The Way of Water any easier, as Weaver still tended to subject herself to serious training regimes that saw her working with a Navy SEAL instructor. The shoot was straining for Weaver mentally, physically, and emotionally as she struggled with confidence issues on top of everything else demanded of her.
Everything We Know About Avatar 3
Set for a December 20, 2024 release date, Avatar 3 is already mostly finished with production, as it was filmed back-to-back with Avatar: The Way of Water. There will be more underwater scenes, and more focus on Sully and Neytiri’s children, while Quaritch will continue being the overall antagonist of the series as he tries to mine the resources of the world of Pandora. Avatar 3 will also feature Fire Na’vi, who will play the role of the less-than-savory children of Pandora. After Avatar: The Way of Water, it is likely that Weaver and Kiri both play major roles in the story of Avatar 3.
Source: Vicky Marx
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