Zoe Saldaña said in an interview with Beyond Noise that James Cameron is “considering a documentary about the making” of the “Avatar” movies, which the Oscar-winning actor is keen on because it will “finally give us a chance to explain, in a meticulous way, why performance capture is the most empowering form of acting.”
“It gives us the credit, the ability to own 100 percent of our performance on screen,” said Saldaña, who has long been a champion of motion capture acting and has been outspoken about award bodies such as the Oscars needing to consider it. “With animation, you might go into the studio for [a few] sessions; that’s as much as they’ll need you for the whole movie. You go into a studio, however you’re dressed, and you lend your voice, right? Performance capture means that ‘Avatar’ wouldn’t exist if Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, myself, and the entire cast didn’t get up and put those dots on our faces.”
“We put on that little unitard with all those dots on it, and step into a volume – that’s what we call the set – that’s rigged on the ceiling, with all these cameras in measured positions,” she added. “They’re all pointing into this space that finds us, and feeds that information into the system that is Pandora.”
Saldaña plays Neytiri in the “Avatar” films, which include 2009’s “Avatar,” 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” and the upcoming “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Cameron intends to make two more “Avatar” movies.
“It takes an average of seven years between [each ‘Avatar’ film],” Saldaña said. “From the archery, the martial arts, the free diving, the scuba diving – so that you can hold your breath under water for longer than five minutes – to the language [James] conceived out of thin air, to physically training with former gymnasts, circus performers, and acrobats so you can learn how to walk like an extraterrestrial human species… That’s all us, and a group of incredible stunt actors that make our characters feel bionic. God bless them. With the technology that Jim creates, he gives the artist the power of complete ownership.”
Saldaña spoke to The Independent last year and called out the Oscars for continuing to snub motion capture performances. Be it the actors in the “Avatar” movies or Andy Serkis’ acclaimed motion capture work as Gollum in “The Lord of Rings” and Caesar in “Planet of the Apes,” motion capture acting has yet to break into the Oscar races.
“Old habits die hard, and when you have old establishments, it’s really hard to bring forward change,” Saldaña said on the topic. “And I understand that, so I’m not bitter about it, but it is quite deflating when you give 120% of yourself into something. I mean, not winning is ok, not being nominated is ok, but when you’re overlooked and then minimized and completely disregarded…”
Cameron told Variety as part of a Saldaña cover story last year that the Oscars are overdue to recognize her work as Neytiri in the “Avatar” franchise.
“I’ve worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a caliber less than that,” the director said. “But because in my film she’s playing a ‘CG character,’ it kind of doesn’t count in some way, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. She can go from regal to, in two nanoseconds, utterly feral. The woman is ferocious. She is a freaking lioness.”
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” opens in theaters Dec. 19 from Disney and 20th Century Studios.
Leave a Reply