The “Avatar” sequel is almost here, and one star is returning an an unexpected new role.
Sigourney Weaver sat down with ET Canada to talk playing teenage Na’vi character Kerry in James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water”.
“To be able to have Jim as a colleague and to have him, you know, and trust me with a role like Kerry, who’s such a soulful, unusual girl, who’s 14, I was so honoured, you know, and kind of terrified, honoured, amused,” she said of taking on the role.
Asked if, after studying teenagers in order to play one, she would want to go back and be a teen again, Weaver responded, “No. No, I’m afraid not.”
She explained, “I think as you get older, you do get more accepting of who you are, what you are. And I love being with my fellow actors who were 7 and 12 and, whatever they were back then. I’m very grateful to them for allowing me looking the way I do at 70. Well, I guess I was 60-something, but, you know, they had to be so courageous in allowing me to be 14. I think they should all get an award for that, you know?”
The actress also talked about learning to hold her breath for six-and-a-half minutes to shoot scenes in the film.
“With our teacher, he teaches the Navy SEALs, you could absolutely do it. You can hold your breath for one minute in a pool if you slow your heart down,” she said. “It would not be a problem for you. And then you build on that and you’re also, you learn how to breathe up. And also the breath holds are all static. So it’s something you do to prepare for a scene. Also in our case, we were sometimes using augmented oxygen, certainly for filming. So we we have 30 per cent oxygen in the world if we’re lucky and we had 50 to 80 per cent.”
