Although dr Sigourney Weaver’s Grace Augustine ultimately died in the first Avatar film, one of the first surprising details director James Cameron shared about the film’s sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, was that Weaver would be returning as a mysterious new character. While Avatar’s history of symbiotic aliens could potentially have led to Dr. Revitalizing Augustine in an imaginative way, it turns out The Way of Water takes a much more surprising approach to bringing Weaver back into the franchise.
The first trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water revealed that its story would focus on the blended family formed by former human Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and the Na’vi Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) after the original film. As surprising as it was to see that Jake and Neytiri had apparently adopted a human child, in a recent interview with Empire magazine, Cameron shared more details about the couple’s other child, Kiri, that may suggest she’s the more intriguing one of the two siblings is .
Although Kiri is a teenager, Cameron revealed Weaver will be playing the character and that the 72-year-old actress had “all the fun she could” working with real teenage girls to get a feel for who they were is.
“Sigourney just got younger,” Cameron said of Weaver’s performance on the set. “She looked younger, she had more energy, and she never fully stepped out of Kiri throughout our entire capture period. She had a glow on her face and lightness in her step and a fun spirit.”
Interestingly, Cameron also shared that Kiri is adopted, meaning there is some sort of connection between her and Dr. Augustine, apart from being portrayed by the same actress. Weaver didn’t share too much about her new character, but she described being able to enter Kiri’s youth with familiarity, recalling how awkward she was herself at that age.
“I had a strong feeling that Kiri would be uncomfortable most of the time,” Weaver said. “She’s looking for who she is. I was thrilled to get this challenge from Jim.”
Avatar: The Way of Water hits theaters on December 16th.