Zoe Saldana Says Avatar Film Tech Gave the Actors "Freedom"
Posted 10.05.09 by BrentJS
While actress Zoe Saldana "doesn't appear photographically" in Avatar, according to director James Cameron the sophisticated CGI technology developed for the movie allowed Saldana's performance to shine through her digital character, giving it "heart and soul." While many actors have complained publicly about the difficulties of working against a green screen on other heavily CGI pictures, Saldana told CanMag that the the technology behind Avatar actually helped her acting experience.
After you get used to it, it is the most amazing thing because you're not working in a movie where you have to pause yourself and they have to light again and you have to start all over again. We would do a scene from the beginning to the end every time. As an actor, you can only be so lucky to do that.
We had this freedom. When you take away a set, when you take away the hair and the makeup, you just leave the actors working with a director and you have all day. You have all day to talk and Jim is that kind of filmmaker, director that he will stop. He will sit down with you and if it takes a three hour discussion in terms of how big a monster is this beast that we're talking about, in order for me to adjust my levels of fear or aggressiveness, it was about going into the computers and getting all these pictures and talking extensively to us so by the time we got back on the Volume, which is what we called the set, we knew what was in our minds. It was being a child again. It was being a child again and not limiting your imagination.
Avatar also stars Sam Worthington, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, and Giovanni Ribisi.