00:00Knowing that at 27 years old, I was seen by James Cameron and he thought that I had what it took to become Neytiri.
00:11I ran for the hills, let me tell you. I just ran with it and I gave 120% every single day.
00:16I haven't stopped doing that. The opportunities that Avatar created for me were unimaginable.
00:24I did take advantage of all of them and I hope to never really take them for granted.
00:39Why do you come to us?
00:43I just want to keep my family safe.
00:45Treat them as our brothers and sisters.
00:57Teach them our ways.
01:00Keep up for us, boy!
01:02If you want to live here, you have to ride.
01:07Let's do it.
01:08I'm Brandi Victoria with Essence Magazine.
01:16You know, the last project I watched you in was from scratch, which I absolutely loved, by the way.
01:21Oh my God.
01:22Avatar, The Way of Water is obviously a very different role.
01:24Can you talk about the different acting muscles you flex between an emotional series like that, a science fiction project like this, and which is more challenging for you as an actress?
01:33I think they all come with their sets of challenges, for sure.
01:38I thought that by, you know, coming back from space and doing, you know, a character like Amy in From Scratch, that I was going to find it easier to just not have to go through either four hours of makeup, like what I did with becoming Trek Gamora, or, you know, work with the technology for Avatar.
01:57But it demanded the same muscle, which is your heart, you know, and at the end of the day, I do all the research that I do to bring my character to life.
02:06So I do incarnate a person.
02:08I live their experiences.
02:09I feel all of their sensations.
02:12And I feel like that, for me at least, it stems from the same sort of, you know, principle, which is, you know, you have to kind of like jumpstart your heart.
02:20Yeah, okay. And, you know, I view this as one of your career, you know, defining roles. And I'm curious, you know, when you think back to 2009 and working on the first Avatar, you know, did you see yourself ending up exactly where you are today?
02:35No, no, I didn't even see myself working with James Cameron. This was some, he's the man that created Sarah Connor and the man that really put Ellen Ripley on the map for me when I was six.
02:49It just, and those were the sort of genres that I gravitated towards. It was action and science fiction. And he was like the king of it at that time.
02:57And knowing that at 27 years old, I was seen by James Cameron and he thought that I had what it took to become Neytiri.
03:09I ran for the hills, let me tell you. Like, I just ran with it and I gave 120% every single day.
03:14I haven't, I haven't stopped doing that. The opportunities that Avatar created for me were unimaginable.
03:23I did take advantage of all of them. And, and I hope to never really take them for granted.
03:29Okay. And, you know, lastly, there's so much anticipation, you know, for this project.
03:35Do the high expectations, you know, make you nervous? Do they add to the excitement? How do you kind of handle this?
03:40I mean, they do. I would be lying if I said they don't, but I, the moment that fear surges, like that worry surges,
03:48I continuously remind myself that it's not about, you know, the quantity of it. It's about the quality.
03:56I know with every fiber of my being that everybody that came together to bring Avatar to life once again,
04:03did it with all heart and all sense of service to our craft, which is storytelling.
04:09And, and I, at the end, all I can do is hope that that has transpired into creating a wonderful story
04:15that people will, will experience and love all over again.
04:21Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time.
04:23Take care.
04:24You too.
04:26Take care.
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