Sigourney Weaver has revealed that Avatar: The Way of Water director James Cameron had an incredibly harsh response when she wondered if she was performing well in the movie.
When making a movie, it can be hard to work out how everything is going to look until it's all put together and actually on the screen.
When you're just one piece of the puzzle, you won't fully know whether it's all fitting together until you get to take a step back and see the whole picture, and even an actor as legendary as Sigourney Weaver can have doubts.
The 72-year-old legend of cinema recently revealed that she was feeling a bit worried about whether her performance was working, and James Cameron made her 'shut up' with a harsh response.
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While the director might have had some tough words for one of his leading stars, it seems to have done the trick as it sounds like exactly what Weaver needed to hear.
Explaining the harsh response she got from Cameron, Weaver laid out the problems she was having with figuring out whether she was giving a good performance.
She said: "I was in agony about Kiri most of the time.
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"I had no idea what was actually coming across. I couldn’t keep track of it. I didn’t want to be thinking about that, and Jim never said anything."
"One day I blurted out some whiny complaint about not getting any feedback, and Jim just turned and said in a serious voice, 'You have to stop being insecure. It's really inappropriate for who you are, how old you are, and what you’ve done in your career.' So, that shut me up. I heard him loud and clear."
Weaver is actually playing a teenager in the Avatar sequel as she's taken on the role of Kiri, the adopted daughter of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana).
Fans who had heard she'd be returning for the sequel might have been confused initially considering she was in the first one and we all saw her die, in state-of-the-art 3D no less.
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She's probably got plenty more work left to do with the Avatar series, and there's no rest for the Weaver as Cameron has said he's already started filming the sequels to avoid some of the movie's younger actors growing out of their roles.
She might really have a long slog of work ahead of her considering he's said he might want to do a six hour movie and really push the limits of what you can get out of the cinema experience.
The director has also teased some information for the third Avatar movie, teasing the appearance of some evil Na'vi
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Cameron and Weaver previously worked together on all time classic movie Aliens, which the director admitted he pitched to executives by writing an 'S' on the end of the original title and then drawing a couple of lines through so it looked like a dollar sign.
Clearly it worked, with the movie going on to become a critical and commercial success which cemented the reputations of Cameron and Weaver as Hollywood icons.
Avatar: The Way of Water is in cinemas now.
Topics: James Cameron, Film and TV, Celebrity
Joe Harker