Kiri is not your average Na'vi. Born from Avatar Dr. Grace Augustine, Kiri was adopted by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and raised with her children, but it's clear that there's something special about this unconventional child.
Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Grace in Avatar and returned as Kiri in The Way of Water, is back as her teenage character in The Way of Water. Avatar: Fire and Ashwhich further explores Kiri's mysterious, mystical connection with Pandora's goddess Eywa.
“Well, it's interesting because we don't necessarily work continuously,” Weaver tells us when we meet in London to talk about the film. “So Kiri, who I think has these gifts, I guess you would call them: the ability to communicate with other species and somehow perform miracles. And she’s just – as far as she’s concerned – a child. Child [who] doesn't know who her father is and so on. And in this [film]because all hell has broken loose and she needs to step up and she kind of has to say, “Okay, I'll never understand this, but I just have to do what I have to do, and somehow I'm able to do it.” [this].'
Weaver, of course frequent collaborator directors James Cameronsince 1986's Aliens. “I think he said, 'I hope you can do it,'” Weaver says with a laugh about working with Cameron on Fire and Ash. “Because we were casting two and three together, and of course casting someone my age to play a 14-year-old, we joke about it, that I was that age emotionally, thank you very much! But I think he really saw something in me that must have helped him create Kiri, and he just wanted me to continue that.
“Actually, I don’t think it really tells us where we’re going. He wants to find out through us where the character is going, and that's why he's not in the video village or anything like that,” Weaver adds. “He is always with us. And when we get to the scene, we genuinely want to know what the scene is about. And Kiri often asks: “How does she understand what is happening now? How does she understand this world that makes no sense to her? So, he kind of helps you get out of the way. He goes out of his way to make sure you can try everything you want. So it's kind of an ideal job for an actor. It's kind of a dream job.”
You'll be able to see how Kiri performs when Avatar: Fire and Ash hits theaters on December 19th of this year. In the meantime, check out our guide to the biggest movie release dates this year and subsequent years, or catch up with the previous film with details about Avatar: The Way of Water ending explained.
