One Avatar: Fire & Ash Actor Had To Do Many Of Their Scenes Twice [Exclusive]

One common reaction to have upon watching an "Avatar" movie is: "How in the world did they do any of that?" It's a question that goes double for this month's "Avatar: Fire and Ash," which contains some of the most bafflingly gorgeous and astonishing imagery yet seen in a motion picture. To help answer most of this question, filmmaker James Cameron and company have stacked the 4K collectors edition releases of "Avatar" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" with special features detailing the processes and methodology involved in bringing Pandora and the Na'vi to life. There's also the two-part documentary "Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films," which premiered on Disney+ about a month ago.

Yet, despite so much information on the making of the "Avatar" films being out there, it still feels difficult to try and wrap one's head around the nitty gritty of how these movies are made. Sure, we know a lot now about how Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, and the other Na'vi actors are motion-captured on a stage before being turned into their characters by teams of artists and animators, but how do the live-action human actors shoot their parts while interacting with these Na'vi? I recently had the opportunity to speak to Sigourney Weaver, who plays the teenage Na'vi Kiri, and Jack Champion, who plays the human Spider, on the eve of the release of "Fire and Ash." The two actors share multiple scenes in the film and, thus, could shine some light on how these moments were made. 

In short: While Weaver shot her performance once, Champion had to shoot these scenes (and much of his role in "Fire and Ash") twice over in order to make it all come together.

Pretty much everyone who knows anything about making movies understands that an actor's performance is made up of multiple takes of a given shot, that films are usually shot out of sequence, and so on. And while all of that is still true for the "Avatar" franchise, Champion's workload was extra-heavy since he shot every scene twice: once on the mo-cap stage, and once in live-action. Not only that, but because Cameron decided to shoot "The Way of Water" and "Fire and Ash" back-to-back, it meant that playing Spider was a performance that was literal years in the making for Champion. As the actor explained to me during our interview, he was helped by a bit of jokey advice that Cameron gave him:

"I did two years of performance capture with [the Na'vi actors] in L.A. and then another two years in New Zealand doing live-action, and I essentially had to retrace my steps. And Jim would always joke that the first two years was like a giant rehearsal for me, because what really mattered was the live-action for me in New Zealand, and I just had to remember their performances. They would play their performances either through a microphone or even like this iPad on top of this foam Na'vi body. But a lot of it was retracing my steps and making sure that I remembered when someone moved so it would match the original footage."

Naturally, one might assume that such intricate work might have made the more instinctual and emotional aspects of Champion's performance suffer, but this was fortunately not the case. "As much as it was technical work, it never affected the emotion, which Jim was always very aware of, which is nice," Champion added.

In terms of his fellow cast members, Champion's efforts did not go unnoticed. To be fair, none of the actors on the "Avatar" sequels, whether mo-capped or live-action, had a breezy shoot. As Weaver told me during our chat, Cameron allows for rehearsal before filming, but he doesn't like to take up too much time while on the mo-cap stage, either: 

"Yes, we always get to rehearse, but there isn't really ... [Cameron] starts shooting pretty quickly, and we've also had rehearsal at the beginning of this whole process."

Yet, while the "Avatar" cast know going in that part of their job is to prepare themselves, Weaver was especially proud of Champion's work. In particular, she explained how he managed to deliver a great performance while relating to a life-size Na'vi stand-in:

"Jack did have to do everything twice. And I think one of the cool things is that he had to relate to a kind of big Na'vi, where a little screen on the body of the Na'vi showed the other actor [that he was acting with]. So, he did an incredible job of dealing with these realities. I'm so proud of him."

As you'll see upon the release of "Fire and Ash," Spider is one of the most prominent and pivotal characters in the film. So, if he didn't work, the movie wouldn't work. Fortunately, as his co-stars have noted, his performance works brilliantly, making "Fire and Ash" that much more compelling and special. Pretty fly for a human guy!

"Avatar: Fire and Ash" is in theaters on December 19, 2025.