The following contains a minor spoiler for Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is getting solid, if not stellar, critical reception, and its opening weekend box office has been rock solid, albeit quite up to the level of the previous entries. While some of the movie’s set pieces may not be achieving the same degree of wonder the franchise once did, one place where it has to be said Avatar 3 does move forward is in the character drama, including the relationship between Spider and Kiri.
We see a romance begin to bloom in Avatar: Fire and Ash between the Na’vi Kiri, played by Sigourney Weaver, and the human Spider, played by Jack Champion. In the story, both characters are teenagers, so the relationship makes sense. Of course, in reality, Sigourney Weaver is…not a teenager. Speaking with THR, the actress explains how the scene, which has Kiri kiss Spider for the first time, came together behind the scenes, saying…
That scene where I say, ‘You’re perfect just as you are,’ we had to be very delicate about that scene because it included a kiss. Obviously I wasn’t 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’t there, they picked someone appropriate for Jack. That concern about all of that, which is quite legitimate, was going on. And I’m glad the scene survived, because when I saw it, I believed it. It’s so genuine between the two of them and any concern about Jack’s real age and my real age, I think there’s no room for it there.
While Sigourney Weaver says there’s “no room” for consideration of the ages of the two actors in that moment, I’m not sure I’d go that far. One of the few moments that took me out of the film while watching Avatar: Fire and Ash was this moment because my brain absolutely considered their ages in that moment. I wasn’t exactly sure how old Jack Champion was in that scene, but I wondered if what I was seeing was exactly what it appeared to be because of that age difference.
Having said all that, the scene absolutely does work, because while you may be aware consciously of that age difference, the scene still feels real. It’s a testament to the motion capture work that most of the time, you never think of Kiri as anything other than a teenager.
So the two didn’t actually kiss while filming, which is certainly the right choice under the circumstances. Weaver clarifies that this was perhaps the only scene in the movie where she is not acting opposite the other actors in the film. Because of the movie’s heavy use of CGI and motion capture, there are always questions about just how much is “real.”
Of course, what’s ultimately important about what’s “real” is that the emotional stakes of the moment are properly conveyed, and Sigourney Weaver and Jack Champion absolutely achieve that goal. Avatar: Fire and Ash is in theaters now.
