{"id":193805,"date":"2025-12-20T19:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/193805\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T19:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:12:09","slug":"fire-and-ash-sigourney-weaver-gets-to-play-the-hero-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/193805\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire and Ash, Sigourney Weaver Gets to Play the Hero Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\n\tSigourney Weaver<\/a> may have built her career as Alien<\/a>\u2019s Ripley, one of the great heroines of American blockbusters, but the three-time Oscar nominee has spent decades avoiding any semblance of typecasting. Of late, Weaver has pulled off vivid performances in larger-than-life supporting parts, often with a villainous bent \u2014 as in Paul Schrader\u2019s Master Gardener, or Bryan Fuller<\/a>\u2019s Dust Bunny, a well-reviewed new indie thriller that hit theaters earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s genuinely moving, then, to see Weaver reclaim the hero mantle at the climax of Avatar: Fire and Ash. It\u2019s already a fascinatingly physical and emotional performance, portraying the 14-year-old Kiri, adopted daughter of Jake and Neytiri (Sam Worthington and Zoe Salda\u00f1a). But here, she gets to tease an innocent romance with Pandora\u2019s teen human dweller, Spider (Jack Champion). She gets the big, superhero-esque backstory reveal, in which she learns that, in absence of a father, she\u2019s descended from Eywa \u2014 Pandora\u2019s Great Mother, or guiding force of energy and consciousness. And she gets to vanquish the villain, finally summoning her powers at the perfect moment to save her mother from the power-hungry Mangkwan leader Varang (Oona Chaplin).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt that moment, Kiri says, \u201cLeave my mother alone, bitch!\u201d \u2014 an evocative echo of one of Weaver\u2019s most famous lines in the sequel Aliens<\/a>, directed by James Cameron<\/a> nearly 40 years ago. We ask her about that and more, in what\u2019s amounting to a rich full-circle moment in the career of one of the greats.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSigourney Weaver as Kiri in Fire and Ash.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow would you describe Kiri\u2019s arc in Fire and Ash?<\/p>\n

\n\tShe comes of age. All the kids do because mom and dad are busy, they have their own issues going on. We\u2019re suddenly thrown out on our own and we are forced to learn to trust ourselves and each other and encourage squabbling. Kiri is put in a very uncomfortable position of having to do something she doesn\u2019t feel she can do, doesn\u2019t want to do \u2014 she doesn\u2019t want to risk her best friend\u2019s life. She has to just follow her instincts. It\u2019s almost like she doesn\u2019t have time to continue to angst about feeling different from everybody else, like she can\u2019t really get her feet on the ground until she knows who her father is \u2014 until she knows just more about what\u2019s going on with Eywa. She has to give up all of that and help her family and survive. They pass through this crucible, and I think it changes them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat moment where Kiri finally gets to protect Neytiri is a big deal for me. At the beginning of [Way of Water], I physically felt that Kiri was just sort of, \u201cMom! Stop!\u201d Having a teenage daughter is a very different experience. I probably did shock Zoe. I heard her say to a reporter, \u201cIf I said red, she said blue. If I said yes, she said no.\u201d Anyway, that moment where I can finally protect my mother after so many years of her protecting me was very meaningful to me\u2026. Her pain is real. I think it\u2019s her trying to make sense of a world and her place in it when nothing she sees does make sense. Children see things and feel things so strongly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn that climactic scene where she does save her mother, Kiri says to Varang, \u201cLeave my mother alone, bitch!\u201d The audience applauds. I heard a bit of a Ripley-Aliens echo there, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople are very excited to bring that up, and\u00a0 I was shocked because that\u2019s the last thing in the world that was on my mind. I intellectually in my shoulder recognized that it was kind of an echo that Jim was trying for that kind of moment. But I was so totally in the Kiri space, that when people say, \u201cWere you thinking of that moment in Aliens?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWell, that\u2019s not how we work. That\u2019s not how acting works.\u201d That would\u2019ve completely confused me. I\u2019m so glad I didn\u2019t. I sensed it, but I didn\u2019t really ever think about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThinking about the way you film these movies: You get a couple of vivid scenes of Kiri in a trance-like state, trying to reach Eywa but coming up against this enormously powerful forcefield. How did you play them? What were the conditions of those scenes?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe shot each one twice. We had our usual empty volume [stage], and they put the forest in right near where the computers are, which was unusual, because they needed a wind machine. One of the thrills of acting in this way is you kind of feel like a diver at the Olympics. You just sort of fly in, \u201cThis is the scene, let\u2019s go.\u201d Then you have to start at a very high pitch. The first one, I just had to imagine all of that \u2014 and the fact that it got worse and worse and worse and worse. And in the second one, I flew back to do it. I didn\u2019t have the kids with me that time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI love to see it in the film. You don\u2019t get that feeling of necessarily where it\u2019s all going to end up except that it\u2019s in the script. It was a whole runthrough of Kiri\u2019s whole life in a way, of feeling at home in the forest and having faith. And then her one very simple goal, to feel that Eywa was on the other end of her conversation,\u00a0 is withdrawn \u2014 it\u2019s that withdrawing that is heartbreaking to her and throws her into this cycle of, \u201cI\u2019ve been ripped away from the fabric of the Navi life.\u201d That\u2019s why I love acting. Jim could say, \u201cDo this scene at a caf\u00e9,\u201d or \u201cWalk through the forest\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 the scale is so big that you really can\u2019t figure these things out intellectually. You have to just let your stomach take over and experience it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s why I ask about those scenes. They\u2019re incredibly emotional, and there is so much going on visually in the final cut, but you have to play them out in an empty room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, it\u2019s true. For a second you go, \u201cOh, I\u2019m in an empty space.\u201d Then that quickly recedes because that is such a safe place for us. It can be anything. Jim does give you indications \u2014 the occasional tree thing or the wind was very helpful \u2014 but especially once you\u2019ve done a good bit of the movie, these things play themselves in a way. You can just go.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis film develops the bond between Kiri and Spider. How did you work on that with Jack Champion, who of course was still a kid when these started filming?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat scene where I say, \u201cYou\u2019re perfect just as you are,\u201d we had to be very delicate about that scene because it included a kiss. Obviously I wasn\u2019t going to kiss Jack, who was 14 or 15, in real life. We asked Jack to pick someone I could kiss and he did. Then I imagine when I wasn\u2019t there, they picked someone appropriate for Jack. That concern about all of that, which is quite legitimate, was going on. And I\u2019m glad the scene survived, because when I saw it, I believed it. It\u2019s so genuine between the two of them and any concern about Jack\u2019s real age and my real age, I think there\u2019s no room for it there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKiri in \u2018Fire and Ash\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of 20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd otherwise, you guys are acting in the scenes together.<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, it was only that one moment. I thought Jack was just terrific in the film. It\u2019s such an interesting role. It\u2019s also the role that Jim Cameron put in after he\u2019d written two, three, and four. He had told me about this human boy before he started writing it, and I guess at a certain point he went for it. It just drives the whole film, that incredible tension in a mixed-race family where the parents have completely opposite feelings and the children don\u2019t have those feelings. I thought it would really resonate in our complicated world.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was like a little vacation whenever we had a scene because we\u2019re frolicking. It\u2019s kind of a time off for me because she\u2019s so deliriously happy; she enjoys his company so much. I don\u2019t know how tall I\u2019m supposed to be, like 6\u20194, and he\u2019s what, 5\u20198 or something, and I tower over him \u2014 and you can really see it in the film. Being a tall woman myself, height doesn\u2019t matter at all. I love that we\u2019re mismatched. It\u2019s perfect.<\/p>\n

\n\tKiri also learns the truth about her origins, and her birth connection to Eywa, in one of your heavier moments to play. It\u2019s the kind of scene the audience knows will come at some point, but is such a massive shock to the character.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was originally going to be brought up in two and Jim rewrote it for three, and I think because she\u2019s a little further along, a little older. The way I experienced it, shooting it right alongside two, I was completely hysterical \u2014 because filming it came very soon after my saying my father was a brave Na\u2019vi warrior and blah, blah, blah. The making fun of me and who my father was, that really struck me to the quick. In the movie, obviously, this is more because I\u2019m having seizures \u2014 they feel they have to tell me something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEspecially at that age, the last thing you want to have happen is some discussion of your parenthood where everything you anticipated is wrong and you\u2019re not like everybody else, and there\u2019s no refuge in these facts. The avatar of your mother in a tank \u2014 she loves her mother, but it is a really kind of weird hand to get, and she\u2019s hoping that something will come up that they haven\u2019t told her because maybe the news is exciting. It\u2019s like, \u201cOh, I think my father is a knight,\u201d or whatever it is. Then you find out that you don\u2019t have one at all. It\u2019s the worst possible news that makes you feel like an insect or a clone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you approach playing her big hero moments? What do they signal for Kiri in this huge arc of these last two films?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tShe senses that there\u2019s help from Pandora, from the roots, from the creatures, and I think her emotional state is so high, so filled with adrenaline and so full of fear that the mind has stopped working. So she doesn\u2019t go, \u201cWow, this is really strange. I\u2019m not sure I want to do it.\u201d It\u2019s just all gut. Her gut makes it happen. The mind is like, \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d They do grow in intensity, but I love the fact that she needs Neytiri and Spider at the end to really have that moment. As far as I can tell, she\u2019s still this Na\u2019vi girl. We don\u2019t really know. And I still don\u2019t know what the deal with Eywa is, except I don\u2019t see any evidence of her having a precious place in her heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery animal can do special things \u2014 a frog can jump, all these things \u2014 but I don\u2019t think she ascribes meaning to it. It\u2019s like a talent, something that comes out in moments of great stress. I don\u2019t think she\u2019s standing back and putting anything together. So sometimes I feel like the audience is ahead of me. \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d \u2014 I try not to have those conversations. I don\u2019t want to hear that stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve talked about what you had to tap into, from your own childhood and time in this industry, to essentially play a teenager again. On the other side of these films, what is it like to watch that work back?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the start of this, we were postponed. I had had a year to just be with myself and find the roots of my 14-year-old. I remember that time and how I felt in my body very, very specifically. I was very shy and I was very tall \u2014 as tall as I am now when I was 11, complete freakazoid and wanting to disappear one moment and then having a wonderful time the next. That was a surprisingly fertile base for germinating Kiri. The first days \u2014 and this is what all actors do, but basically without any costume or anything \u2014 I had to go into the volume [stage]. One always prepares for months for roles as complex as this, but you have to go into neutral. Honestly, I just hoped and prayed that Kiri would come into me.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe more we worked, the more I could depend on that. That always happened. Jim said right before we started, \u201cI hope you can do this.\u201d (Laughs.) I\u2019m sure we were all feeling that way. But anyway, it was hard. The beginning was hard. You have to get out of your way. Your mind has to kind of go into a drawer and your instrument just knows exactly what to do. That\u2019s why I think it\u2019s hard for people to talk about acting because it sounds like witchcraft or something, but it\u2019s not. If you just let your body do it, it will go. It\u2019s the same kind of liberation with these physical parts especially.<\/p>\n

\n\tI love seeing you play the hero again. But you have another film out, Dust Bunny, and you\u2019re wonderful in it \u2014 but the New York Times accurately described your character, Laverne, as \u201cpungent and terrifying.\u201d You\u2019ve made a habit more recently of injecting humanity into villains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s been very meaningful to me to meet so many young journalists \u2014 they look about 12 (Laughs.), and their questions are so smart and so personal, and I think Kiri gives a home to a lot of them. She doesn\u2019t feel like she fits in anywhere. I feel very lucky that I get to constantly, with my choices in my career, do the antidote of what I did before. So after you play a character like Laverne, you do yearn to play the other side. I feel like they kind of neutralize each other in me, in a nice way. It\u2019s so easy to get pigeonholed into those parts, and I\u2019m so glad that I made it such a high priority to get away from whatever I had just done \u2014 go to the far side of the planet and do something completely different.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was so hard about this Dust Bunny character? You said it was one of the hardest for you to figure out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI think because what [Bryan] wanted was not my first instinct. My first instinct was more Elaine May, and he wanted something much more complicated and not easy to reduce down to someone who wasn\u2019t really in control of how they were behaving. It was scarier than my instinct. By the end, I could have killed her, because I felt like I was saving his life. That\u2019s what I was there to do. And it\u2019s a dark place, but she was fine with it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt must be an interesting experience having a movie that\u2019s projected to gross upwards of $1 billion, and then another movie that is fighting to get every person into the theater that you can get. That\u2019s kind of the movie business in a nutshell right now.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt really is. And it\u2019s my career in a nutshell. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash] Sigourney Weaver may have built her career as Alien\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[27324,24680,47050,62601,156,47052,409,111,139,69,68360],"class_list":{"0":"post-193805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-alien","9":"tag-aliens","10":"tag-avatar-fire-and-ash","11":"tag-bryan-fuller","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-james-cameron","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-sigourney-weaver"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}