The 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' Cast on the Huge New Challenges and Growing Up on Set

This world goes much deeper than you, Matt. Thanks for watching this episode of Fandango's Big Ticket, sponsored by Apple Pay. Dash through checkout on Fandango with Apple Pay. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Fandango's Big Ticket interview for Avatar, Fire, and Ash. And I'm here with the cast. I'm so excited to have you all here. It's my understanding some of you have seen the entire movie. Some of you just saw scenes. I want the reaction. Give me the reaction. Who has seen the movie? I don't think we've seen it. James said you had. I've seen 40 minutes. You've seen 40? Okay. Reaction? It's amazing. Oh, it's good. It's really good. No, I was crying. I had like a full face of makeup and I was just bawling. Oh my gosh. Sigourney, you came in here with tears in your eyes. Yes, I did. Definitely. There's a scene between these two guys. A couple of scenes that were so beautiful and heartbreaking. And frankly, as a fellow actor, so inspiring. And, you know, they have a lot of private scenes. And as one of the children, I've always wondered what was going on. You know, what was going on when the two of them were together? No, but it's so, so beautiful. And you cannot, you know, we've lived these other two movies. We know how high the expectations are. So are ours. But what we saw today, even though it wasn't that much, is so extraordinary. From the most moving, to the most terrifying, to the most incredible action. It is just a non-stop immersive adventure. And it's so audaciously ambitious that it, you know, if you're wondering, does this talk? The first two, uh, hello. Get out of the way. And we're trapped. We're sold. Okay, we're gonna go. Yes. I can't help myself. I'm just... That's amazing. That's a beautiful... Anybody else want to add anything that, from what you see, you can't wait for audiences to see? Like a costume, a new character, you know, whatever it is. Anybody wants to jump in, Zoe? No, it's, it's, it's... I'm echoing what Sigourney is saying. This movie feels far more dangerous. As well, the stakes are so high. And just when you thought, after Way of Water, the unimaginable happens to the Sully family by losing a child. And, and, and you sort of go, well, where, where are we gonna take it from here? What, what is Jim gonna do? And Fire and Ash is definitely its title. It is about the rage and the grief. But it's also about the love for family, for, for sticking together, for, for Pandora, for the people. And it's just, it's sublime. Wow. Anybody else want to add anything? I have to say Oona is a revelation. Yeah, jump in. Oona is a revelation. I, I feel like we've been, we've been in dire need of a badass female. Oh, because we don't have enough of those? And, and, oh, yes, yes, yes. Well, I mean, there's, there's room. There's always room for more. And, and Oona as Varong is gonna bring a layer. I'll let Oona also elaborate on this. But the layer that is the complexity of having Navi tribes turn on each other in a way that is just unlike anything we've seen before is, is, is gonna be a wonderful surprise. And I just spoiled, but it's okay. We're okay with that. We're fine with that. You were cast in what, 2017? How long have you been sitting on this, waiting for this moment? I mean, all my friends thought I was lying for years. They're like, yeah, Avatar. The second one came out. They were like, mm-hmm, you're in it. Yeah. Now they know. And this is, this is the moment we're gonna get, we're gonna get to all of it. So I would love to ask you, and then Sam, you can jump in, just the evolution. And congratulations, Oscar winner, by the way. Yes, we're all grown up now. Last time I saw you, you hadn't won yet. So I'm excited to see you. But yeah, sort of the evolution of Neytiri, from the beginning of playing her, when you were, you know, back in 2009 to, to now. I mean, in a way, it's, it's, it's paralleled my life, you know, of, of, of being young and fearless and not wanting to sort of conform to any norms that, that, that feel confining, you know, and, and, and then all of a sudden she falls in love and this man comes with so much purpose. And it's the kind of purpose that she's been hoping to have for a very long time. And she just always jumps into the unknown with him. Starting a family, I feel, was the biggest gift that the Sullys, that Jake and Neytiri could have ever given to, to each other. But also the biggest threat, because they, they know what they're up against constantly and they believe, they believe that their love can survive so much. So in a way, it's just, it's wonderful to incarnate these characters and get to visit them and revisit them in so many different stages of their lives. Parallel, I, you know, when I say that it's, it almost feels like we've paralleled that, is I feel like Sam and I have grown up together in, in such a way. We've seen so many stages of each other's lives, you know, and now the greatest honor is knowing that our children play together and, and that, that only feeds our work and, and, you know, feeds everything that we sort of want to give to these two characters so much. And, and it's been, I feel like it's my biggest gift is, is getting to, to grow with this man that's not my husband and, but is my husband and, but it's actually my brother. And so it's been, it's been, it's been a wonderful honor. Chinatown here, huh? I'm just unpacking that. We first met Jake Sully. He was a soldier. Then he was a leader. Then he became a father. This picks up two weeks after the last one. Where's, set the stage, where's he at? Where's this relationship at? I think that's the main thing that the movie does pick up. So the ripple effect of how we ended the way of water certainly resonates with all the characters, not just the Sullys, but even Quaritch and stuff like that. So I think that's the thing about this movie is, you know, it goes a lot deeper. It's the, you know, the, the Pandora, we get to see a lot deeper. And, you know, in the second one, in the way of water, we dived into the deep oceans. This one, we're going into deep emotions. That's certainly true. You know, and I think the great thing about us doing them together is that we got to progress these characters, you know, so, so they pick up straight after the action and whatever happened to them in that way of water, we've seen the repercussions, but we as actors got to kind of, we didn't have to go away for several years and then come back in. We were lucky enough to kind of keep on that motor. And I think it really shows. Kiri was such a fascinating character that we met the last time. I feel like James kind of called this the culmination. I'm wondering for Kiri, what more? I mean, we sort of learned a little bit about her power in the last one and sort of this mystical spirituality she has and how she can harness it. What, how, how much deeper do we go with her in this one? Well, I think the, the kids, especially the whole family has huge new challenges. You begin in a wonderful way, looking down at the planet and very soon we're kind of thrust in parts of Pandora you've never seen. And kids have to figure things out on their own. And as Jake always says, Sullys stick together, Sullys don't give up. And I think in this course of this, Kiri feels called on and is called on to, to test these gifts more. I would say that she has no assurance of success. And even if it works out, there's a lot of mystery to it. It's not like she has any confidence in it, but somehow things end up directly involving her. And even though she has no certainty at all, she has to do something. They all have to do everything they can just to survive in this one. And so her, her kind of journey about who she is and, and the connection with Ewa, who everyone seems to have except for her, Ewa closes her ears to Kiri. And so it's very frustrating. One, she's somewhat successful and two, no communication. So it's kind of confusing. I have theories about where that's going four and five, but we don't have time today. I want to juxtapose what you're saying about Kiri with your character, because there's a, there's a line in the trailer where you say to Kiri, I don't want to misquote, but your goddess has no dominion here. And the power of that, everybody's talking about it, everybody's feeling it. I want to know sort of that dynamic of that scene. And for you, just sort of your process of getting into this character and, and sounds like she's just going to be exceptional. Yeah, she's pretty spicy. That scene is, is really cool because it's like coming face to face with kind of the weakness of children and the innocence of children and the weakness of this faith that they have. And, you know, in my character's eyes and in Varun's eyes, this, this kind of kind of flimsy innocence, you know, and, and, you know, my characters, Varun's like grown beyond that and found a more powerful connection and a more powerful source. And it's really just harnessing the power of grief and of despair. That's like the real, the real, where she gets like the, her, her fierceness is from having gone through a really big trauma and having gone through some pretty devastating kind of life events that have, that were outside of her control and really meeting those with like the fullness of her being going right into it and not to heal it, unfortunately for everybody else, but to really meet it and, and, and, and harness the power. And I think it's, it's really, it's like a classic case of hurt people, hurt people, you know? And I think the, the whole film really, really plunges into that in a really beautiful, complex way. It's like, at what point did we become the monsters that we're trying to destroy? You know? Wow. I can't wait to know. Because it's so relentless. Yeah. Because villain is not really the word, right? For the Ash people, villain might be, they might be categorized as villains, but maybe not. Yes. But I mean, I can't see her as a villain. Right. Of course. No, never. She's the hero of her people. In my eyes. But there is a villain in this story, sir. And that might be your character, Quaritch. Who I have never. Darling Quaritch. I have never characterized him as a villain. You, well, actors can't because you're playing him. I don't see why actors can't. Actors can admit to the fact that they're playing villains sometimes. But it's not useful for me. Yes. In this particular role. Well, I'm going to lighten the mood a little. Because Quaritch, aside from being a villain, is super funny. He has some great one-liners. Children, you're not children anymore. Close your ears. The first film, Pandora will eat you and s*** you out. For jujubees. What was it? For jujubees, isn't it? Something like that. Yeah. Like jujubees. And I'm like, what are jujubees? The second one, you arrive big and blue. And you said, I know what you're all thinking. Why so blue? Give me a good Quaritch line from this film. That's going to resonate with you. There's some juicy ones. You want a funny line or a good line? I mean, first of all, thank you for saying I'm funny. I hope the industry is listening. I can do comedy. Well, he's got you doing these films forever. He is, I think in some sense, Quaritch keeps his eye on the prize in a way. His agenda has not changed from the very, very beginning. He's a wolf with a bone. And the name of that bone is Jake Sully. It's a line where I'm getting kind of poked and whacked by the Ash people. And I look at one of the guys and say, I got my eye on you. It's just such an irrelevant, sort of impotent thing to say at that time. But it is so, so Quaritch. Now, I don't know if there's a team up here. But is Quaritch going to have a soft spot for what his son did for him in this last film? I want to go to you. There's a moral quandary because of what happened at the end of the last one. What is he experiencing at the top of this film in terms of loyalty to father versus father and family? I feel like it's just confusion and a mix of a healthy amount of guilt, you know? I mean, he's living with this family for two weeks after all that happened. And they're still mourning. They're all mourning the death in the TAM. And how does someone navigate that? And it's like the family fortress just got a giant wall through it. So it's like, how do you rebuild and heal that while having same threats and new threats trying to tear it down, you know? So that's why I think it's just such a beautiful film visually and emotionally. I love the physicality that you bring to it. And James has mentioned the fact that you kind of have to shoot twice. He's like, he has the hardest job of anybody because he has to shoot twice. You have to shoot with everybody with their performance capture. And then you have to go back and shoot it as yourself. So if you can just talk about that physicality, because I love Spider in the first one. I just was blown away by everything that you brought to it. I mean, I trained a lot for the physicality. We all trained a lot for learning how to move like a Na'vi, use knives, bow and arrows, all that stuff. But I mean, Jim always joked that it's like a giant rehearsal performance capture for me because it was like two years of just that, knowing I'd have to do all my scenes again alone in New Zealand. Well, not alone. I had a wonderful troupe and Jim and amazing crew there. But, you know, these guys couldn't be there. But yeah, I just trained a lot, I guess, and learned kind of... I guess I just kind of did what we all did, but just kind of maybe twice as much with like the pre-diving and learning how to do like a scuba mask that they built, a real full face mask. And we all were relieved that that wasn't a factor this time. Yeah, you like throughout that time between like shooting and performance capture and then getting yourself to New Zealand, you also went through puberty. Yeah, I was going through puberty. All of a sudden, we have Jack and we're shooting here in Manhattan Beach and he's like, Oh my God, look at that. And then like by the time he lands in New Zealand, he's like, It was the most bizarre. It's like, what? Who is that? It's like, that's Jack. I did, yeah. I grew like a full foot, I think, through the whole time. No, you doubled in size. Yeah, it was a lot. James talked about how this story is a lot about the children. There's a bit of a passing of the torch. There's a different narrator in this one. I said, it scares me for your character that you're no longer narrating. I don't know what's going to happen. I think there's a reason behind that. Yeah. If you lost your son, it's going to be a very, very subjective voiceover. You know what I mean? And I think part of the voiceover allows the audience in. And so I think it's a very smart kind of way of looking that Jim's done that, the way he designed it. Because otherwise it would be Jake just ranting and raving and crying and being very angry at the world that he's been, that's opened up. So I think it's a very smart conceit by Jim to do that. He can be more internal. So for you, what did you get to explore this time around? And I also want to know, you all went through this kind of together, kind of grew up together through filming, you know, the two concurrent. And then the whole press tour, I haven't talked to you since the last one, sort of had the experience of it all. What's interesting in playing Sade is her relationship with Loak and how they grow with each other, but to also see someone she loves very, very deeply mourn his brother was very, very hard for her. But what's interesting is all of the Inverden scenes were done in two days. So all of our scenes together were mainly like just one-on-one, which are so beautiful and intimate, were just compounded in two days of filming. And Sade doesn't have many scenes with, we don't have many scenes together. So it was mainly bonding, I guess, outside of like with laser tag and doing studying together, less kind of on set with our scenes. And what about for you? Maybe you can answer to the experience of the craziness. I mean, I love you all so much. I mean, Avatar has been a huge part of me for more than half of my life. And I really feel like Took and I have grown up together somehow and that she's just always going to be a huge part of me. Seeing everything come together when we just saw some of the scenes just now and also getting to reunite with you all. It's just like a dream come true, honestly. Yeah. I mean, I just want to say that Trinity was a tiny little thing. She was seven. She was this beautiful little creature. And now you're, I think, double the size, right? Yeah. And she's so gung-ho. I carry Took on my back a lot. Yeah. She was not going to happen. That's not going to happen for more than five years. She's bigger than me. She was also in charge of the tip, the curse. Oh, no, the swear jar. So when anybody used foul language. I'm going to have to pay you at the end of the day. At the end of the day. I gave her a blank check. Trinity, Trinity. I understand the perspective now. What happened to that money, Trinity? It was donated to a pet shelter. So, by the way, you know, you were also a co-founder. So it's not me alone. But you also aided to it as well. Yeah, contributor and funder. Well, thank you all so much for sharing so much about this film. Cannot wait to see Fire Nation. If you can't wait, you can go get your tickets right now at Fandango. Thank you for watching. And thank you all. Thank you.