Avatar: The Way of Water Stars Describe the Intense Process of Learning to Act Underwater

The Avatar: The Way of Water stars described what it was like to pull off the film’s many underwater scenes. The sequel to the smash hit Avatar takes fans back to Pandora as director James Cameron continues the adventures of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). The opening weekend box office projects currently find Avatar: The Way of Water opening anywhere in the $135-$175-million range, showing there is still significant interest in the world of Avatar. Joining Worthington and Saldaña are costars Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang, who discussed what it was like to using the new underwater technology developed by Cameron.

“We were the guinea pigs,” Sam Worthington told Fandango correspondent, Nikki Novak, about filming underwater for Avatar: The Way of Water. “We worked with a world-renowned expert, Kirk, for months,” Saldaña added, with Weaver chiming in, “We studied for about a year. We started getting certified for scuba. I remember even the first day, [Cameron] has you be very still with your face in the water and we were able to hold out breath for a minute, which surprised me. And he continued to build on that, to do breathing exercises. And you also have the benefit of enhanced oxygen when you’re actually shooting the movie.

How Avatar: The Way of Water Surpasses the First Avatar

According to Zoe Saldaña, Avatar 2‘s underwater 3D is nothing less than a “groundbreaking” culmination of James Cameron’s career-long obsession with oceans and deep sea exploration. And we are not ready: 

“I do believe and my hope is that we’ll have the same reaction that we had for Avatar 1. And that will be more than okay, because that was groundbreaking already as it was,” Saldaña explained. “So a continuation of this – it’s almost as if it’s a rediscovery of Pandora, because before we got to see Pandora through the forest, and through the eyes of the Omaticaya Tribe, and now we’re stepping into the world of the Metkayina Na’vi and they are the water people – it is the water world – and I do believe that… this is going to be a like a culmination of Jim finally getting the opportunity to fully share with us all his passion for the water, for the ocean. He’s always had it: he had it with The Abyss, with Titanic, in real life with all of his excursions… And I think that through the Metkayina Tribe and their world, we’re going to immerse ourselves in something that we have never seen before, and it will be also just as groundbreaking as Avatar 1 was.”

“I think it’s even more mind-blowing than the first one,” Weaver said in a follow-up. “Because it’s just such a new element for us as human beings to feel comfortable underwater. And to feel a connection with the creatures that live underwater. It’s very much what I think Jim would dream of if he could create any experience for us – to give us the ability to be underwater without needing to breathe. And he’s given it to us here and in such a breathtaking way. People will never want to leave the theater, honestly. They’ll just want to sit there and see it again and again. Because it’s something you can’t get in real life.” 

Avatar: The Way of Water arrives in theaters on December 16th.