Zoe Saldaña's First Avatar Meeting With James Cameron Was A Literal Out Of Body Experience
Even in a post-Marvel Hollywood, there are very few actors who can say they've starred in multiple record breaking blockbusters. It's a rare feat — a mixture of blind luck and innate castability — but Zoe Saldaña is one of the few that's pulled it off. She's the second highest-grossing actress of all time, the star of some of the hugest movies to have hit theaters. But Saldaña confessed that she's "still pinching" herself, even all these years later. "The fact that these two movies are the most successful ones," she told Jimmy Fallon, "and I'm in them — it's not bad for a girl from Queens."
The two movies in question are, of course, "Avengers: Endgame" and "Avatar," the second of which remains the highest grossing of all time. With its sequel, "Avatar: The Way of the Water," due out in December, it's inspired a bit of a walk down memory lane — especially since Fallon himself was so curious about the casting process.
'Are you ready to meet yourself?'
As many already know, "Avatar" director James Cameron is not one to do anything in half measures. The world that he built for that film was surreal, lush and immersive — and it didn't exactly inspire a conventional audition process. Saldaña began auditioning before she'd even seen the script, and likely before her character was fully formed. After a few mysterious, physical auditions, Saldaña arrived in Los Angeles to meet Cameron at his production studio, Lightstorm. There, the actress was left alone in a private office with the "Avatar" script, which, as she recalled, was something like four inches thick:
"They gave me three hours to read it. I took six. Because it was just — all the directions describing the whole world of Pandora was just really bizarre to me and I — English is not my first language, so that was a little hard."
After she got through the script, Saldaña met Cameron, who kicked off their meeting with an interesting question: "Are you ready to meet yourself?"
To observe (and be observed)
"At that moment, my soul, like, left my body," Saldaña recalled. And it's hard to blame her: knowing Cameron, that could have meant anything. Still, she made a point to trust the process, and things only got more surreal from there:
"He walks me to his office. I see this big wheel of a ship, and I had no idea it was the Titanic wheel. I see the arm of the Terminator. I just — I was just like, 'Oh, my god. This is — I'm having an out-of-body experience.'
"[...] And then, on a coffee table was a sculpture of my character, Neytiri. And as I'm observing the sculpture, he's sitting across from me, like, observing me. And I thought in my mind, like, 'That's not weird. That's not weird. Don't act weird.'"
Who knows what Cameron was thinking in those moments, but given the offer that Saldaña received weeks later, it must have been good. The director invited the actress to join the cast shortly after. Saldaña remembered: "...I still get teary-eyed, because it was definitely a big opportunity and a very big dream come true for me." It was without a doubt the gift that continues to give, with Saldaña signed on for multiple sequels. One has to wonder how she finds the time for all the other blockbusters in her orbit, but it's clear that whatever system she's using is working brilliantly.