Sigourney Weaver Went Back to High School to Prepare to Play a Teenager in AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

Sigourney Weaver plays the 14-year-old adoptive Na’vi daughter of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) in Avatar: The Way of Water. It’s pretty amazing that she is actually getting this opportunity to play this character named Kiri, and to prepare for the role Weaver said that she went back to high school and attended classes so that she could perfect “the pitch” of the teenage girl. She said at a recent press conference:

“I love that I had the opportunity to play a real adolescent. There’s a big range of who an adolescent is between 12 and 15, and once I saw that I realized I can let Kiri come out—whoever she is—and combine her with who I was at 14. It gave me so much to work with. And by the time I got there, I just got to enjoy leaving this shell behind and becoming this sometimes-brat.”

While Kiri is a new character to the franchise, she does have a connection with Dr. Grace Augustine, which is said to be revealed very early in Avatar: The Way of Water.

Weaver previously offered some details and insight into this new character and explained that she has a “deep love for all things in the world, creatures, plants, everything. This is also true when she's underwater. She's at ease in these natural environments and very comfortable with all the different creatures.”

In regards to her part in the story, she saif: “It's a touching story, because we have to leave our home and we have to leave the forest and go to this new environment. And I think what I loved about what Jim did was that she is a very typical adolescent. She's very self-conscious, filled with all these emotions that come from being thrown into this new reality and missing home. So, 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.”

The film is set more than a decade after the events of the first film, “Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.”

The movie stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, and Kate Winslet.

Avatar: The Way of Water hits theaters on December 16th, 2022.