Movies - TV
Zoe Saldaña's First Impression Of Avatar Was A Lot Closer To Alita: Battle Angel
By JEREMY MATHAI
Back in 2009, society was entirely unprepared for “Avatar, and the film’s performance capture and visual effects work, stunned audiences upon its premiere. However, without any knowledge of the final product, the cast and crew of “Avatar” were a bit confused by the film, like Zoe Saldaña who imagined something closer to “Alita: Battle Angel.”
Saldaña’s initial idea of the film mostly included “Alita: Battle Angel,” some clicking noises, and a lot of gymnastics. On “The Tonight Show,” Saldaña described her struggle, “First, they told me that it was about this robot […] But it’s set in the jungle. And I was like, “Well that doesn’t really make any sense.’ A warrior princess [who] was a robot, a sentient — like, ‘What is that?’”
Saldaña also revealed the intense audition process included physical demands like cartwheels and climbing, and once when, “they were like, ‘Just make all these sounds.’ […] And I’m like, Well, okay.” Although the process was demanding and sometimes strange, Saldana kept an open mind and recalled thinking “‘I don’t know what this is, but I dig it.’”