Director James Cameron and The Walt Disney Company are being sued in Los Angeles by an Indigenous actress who alleges her likeness at age 14 was utilized for a key character in the \u201cAvatar\u201d film series without her consent, according to court papers obtained Thursday.<\/p>\n
Actress Q\u2019orianka Kilcher contends in the suit filed in federal court that Cameron \u201cextracted her facial features\u201d and directed his design team to base the \u201cAvatar\u201d character Neytiri on her appearance as a teen after seeing her likeness as Pocahontas in an ad in The Los Angeles Times for Terrence Malick\u2019s 2005 film \u201cThe New World.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 96-page complaint includes parts of interviews between Cameron and his production team that mention Kilcher by name and describe how her likeness was used as inspiration for the fictional character who was played on-screen by Zoe Salda\u00c3\u00b1a.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case exposes how one of Hollywood\u2019s most powerful filmmakers exploited a young Indigenous girl\u2019s biometric identity and cultural heritage to create a record-breaking film franchise \u2014 without credit or compensation to her \u2014 through a series of deliberate, non-expressive commercial acts,\u201d according to Tuesday\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Kilcher, 36, a Native Peruvian actor and activist, contends that Cameron and his team hid the truth about the inspiration behind the character\u2019s image and never sought permission to use the alleged likeness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe result was a hugely lucrative film franchise that presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles, all while silently exploiting a real Indigenous youth behind the scenes,\u201d the suit says.<\/p>\n
Representatives for Cameron and The Walt Disney Co. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Kilcher is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of profits attributable to the use of her likeness, injunctive relief and corrective public disclosure.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, Kilcher first met Cameron at a charity event in 2010, months after the first \u201cAvatar\u201d movie hit theaters. When they met, the suit alleges, Cameron invited Kilcher, then age 19, to visit his office, where he gave Kilcher framed artwork that she believed to be an original sketch of the Neytiri character drawn and signed by Cameron.<\/p>\n
Attached to the sketch was a handwritten, signed note from Cameron that read: \u201cYour beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time,\u201d the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n
Kilcher is known for her recurring role on the television series \u201cYellowstone.\u201d She most recently starred in \u201cThe Wolf and the Lamb,\u201d released this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director James Cameron and The Walt Disney Company are being sued in Los Angeles by an Indigenous actress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[44713,122713,6193,3588,35682,48,52,51,47,50,49,128431,44391],"class_list":["post-304816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-avatar","tag-cameron","tag-character","tag-disney","tag-james","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-sued","tag-walt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}