Sigourney Weaver's Teenage Transformation For Avatar: The Way Of Water Was An Inspiration For Zoe Saldaña

"Avatar: The Way of Water" is almost here, and the first reactions call it, well, exactly what you'd expect from James Cameron's follow-up to his 2009 sci-fi epic. It is often said that one should never bet against Jimmy Francis Cameron, and that's with good reason. He thrives on proving people wrong, on having the odds stacked against him, and then blowing audiences away with some of the most purely entertaining blockbusters of all time. With a week to go before the film's release, the first wave of reactions are calling the film an "awe-inducing masterclass in world-building," a "monumental filmmaking achievement" and "storytelling at its absolute finest." 

This may not have been the most highly anticipated movie of the year, but it is arguably the biggest. This is a movie so big and costly it needs to be stupidly successful just to break even, a movie that is creating new tools and pushing motion capture and VFX forward in ways no other movie is — not even "Avengers: Infinity War," according to Cameron. The filmmaker not only wants to bring back 3D, but also crack the high frame rate issue once and for all, all while telling an epic family story that introduces the next generation of Na'vi. No wonder the film requires a runtime almost the length of "Titanic" to contain everything.

"The Way of Water" will move the focus away from Sam Worthington's Jake Sully and towards his and Neytiri's children, who will one day lead the Omaticaya clan. Out of all five kids we've seen, the one with the biggest question mark surrounding them is undoubtedly Kiri, played by none other than previous Cameron collaborator Sigourney Weaver.

Weaver, you might recall, already had a role in the first "Avatar," playing Dr. Grace Augustine. Grace, of course, died of a gunshot wound in that film, and failed to transfer her consciousness into her avatar. Well, now she's back, as a teenager!

If you think it is kind of weird for the audience to see Weaver play a teenager, imagine how weird it was for her co-stars to see her return in a new, much younger role. For Zoe Saldaña, though, it wasn't a problem. "It's a dream come true," Saldaña told Empire before taking a pause and reconsidering. "It's not even a dream come true. I would have never dreamt in my wildest dreams thought I would be playing some kind of maternal figure in any role that Sigourney Weaver would have been playing, and yet James Cameron provided us the setting and the technology and the story for us to be able to stretch that far."

The actor continued, "It was exhilarating. To see a master like Sigourney Weaver morph back into a child-like form. It's quite amazing. Very inspiring."

For her part, Weaver got extremely committed to playing the role of a 14-year-old girl. "I had a lot to think about as Kiri, and I had to work in a completely different way than I've ever worked. That was very exciting for me," Weaver told Empire. "I didn't want to play an adolescent, I wanted to become an adolescent. And I didn't want to become any adolescent. I wanted to become her."

Weaver coming back as Kiri underlines the fact that Cameron now has several great ways of never getting rid of his actors. On the one hand, we have Stephen Lang, whose character, Miles Quaritch, died in the first film but is coming back to "Avatar: The Way of Water" in avatar form. With Weaver playing a younger character also in avatar-ish form, what's stopping Cameron from doing it again? He can literally kill any character, then recast the actor as another random teenager, weave away any explanation as it being the will of Eywa, and call it a day. And you know what? Maybe he should do that, just pull an "American Horror Story" or "Miracle Workers" situation where the same actors return to play different characters every installment. I mean, who could possibly complain about more Sigourney Weaver in their lives?

"Avatar: The Way of Water" premieres December 16, 2022.