Sigourney Weaver says she ‘brought some awkwardness’ to play 14-year-old girl in Avatar 2

‘I don’t think John Wayne was asked to play a 14-year-old, may I just say,’ 73-year-old actor added

Sigourney Weaver has been cast as 14-year-old Kiri in James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water.

The highly anticipated forthcoming sci-fi, which follows Cameron’s original 2009 Avatar, has already been hailed as “the most insanely complicated movie ever made” following the debut of new footage in late August.

Starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña who will reprise their roles as Jake and Neytiri Sully, the new film will focus on their lives as they leave their home and travel with their children to explore regions of Pandora.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, 73-year-old Weaver, whose original character Doctora Grace Augustine dies in the first movie, spoke about her new role as Kiri, the Sully’s young adopted daughter.

When asked what conversations she had with Cameron when he approached her about playing the role of a 14-year-old girl, the Oscar-nominated actor joked: “I don’t think John Wayne was asked to play a 14-year-old, may I just say.

“I had a very early conversation with Jim [director Cameron] about this, and he was very already committed to this kind of character, but who she was, what she was about was something we talked about at the beginning,” she said.

Weaver went on to explain that when she was shown the first pictures of Kiri, “she was so perfect, every hair in place. And I said, ‘Jim, when you’re a 13, 14-year-old girl, that is not how you feel about yourself.’

A scene from ‘Avatar 2’ (AP)

“I got together with the designers or the drawers and just brought some awkwardness. That’s what he ended up calling it now, ‘awkward Kiri,’ as opposed to ‘perfect Kiri,’” she continued.

“I was this tall when I was 11, so I was just like a big spider moving around, knocking things over,” Weaver added, saying that “for better or worse, my awkward, self-conscious teenager was able to flow right into Kiri, and I had to work in a completely different way, which is kind of letting it flow into me.”

“I don’t know that any of us is very far removed from our adolescent moment, because it certainly stands out in bold relief for a lot of people,” she said.

“I’m not sure how far I’ve gotten away from my teenager, but Jim said to me, ‘You can do this. You’re so immature. This is about how old you are anyway.’”

Avatar: The Way of Water is expected to release in cinemas on 16 December.