James Cameron sued for ‘exploiting’ actor to create 'Avatar' character
"I never imagined that someone I trusted would use my face as part of an elaborate design process... without my knowledge or consent.”
Avatar director James Cameron is being sued by Q’orianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in 2005’s The New World, over her allegation that he based a key character on her appearance.
Kilcher, who was 14 when she starred opposite Colin Farrell in Terrence Malick’s film, claims that Cameron told her he based the appearance of Zoe Saldana’s character Neytiri on a photograph of her.
Guardian Australia reports that: "A release about the lawsuit says that “one of Hollywood’s most powerful film-makers exploited a young Indigenous girl’s biometric identity and cultural heritage to create a record-breaking film franchise – without credit or compensation to her – through a series of deliberate, non-expressive commercial acts”.
Legal documents further claim that a photograph of Kilcher was the inspiration for sketches used to create Neytiri's image, and the 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.”
Kilcher says she did not know she was the character was based on her image until she met Cameron at an event in 2010, a year after the first Avatar movie was released.
According to her law suit, Cameron told her he had a gift for her in his office - a signed sketch of Neytiri by Cameron, along with a note that read: “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
Kilcher claims she was never invited to participate "next time."
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Kilcher later said in a statement: “When I received Cameron’s sketch, I believed it was a personal gesture, at most a loose inspiration tied to casting and my activism.
“Millions of people opened their hearts to Avatar because they believed in its message and I was one of them.
"I never imagined that someone I trusted would systematically use my face as part of an elaborate design process and integrate it into a production pipeline without my knowledge or consent.
"That crosses a major line. This act is deeply wrong.”
Cameron's legal response says that he first saw Kilcher when a photo advertising The New World ran in the LA Times.
“The actual source for this was a photo in the LA Times, a young actress named Q’orianka Kilcher. This is actually her...her lower face. She had a very interesting face," he later said.
Kilcher is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of profits attributable to the use of her appearance, and corrective public disclosure.
