'Avatar: The Way of Water' star Stephen Lang says he pitched a key scene to James Cameron, and the director put it into the movie
- Warning: Spoiler below if you haven't seen "Avatar: The Way of Water."
- Stephen Lang recalled to Insider the scene he suggested to James Cameron for the movie.
Though James Cameron has crafted some of the biggest box-office hits of all time, it turns out he's open to ideas from his actors throughout the filmmaking process.
This is evident in his latest movie, "Avatar: The Way of Water."
During an interview with Insider, Stephen Lang, who plays the evil Quaritch in the franchise, revealed that he pitched a scene to Cameron and the director agreed to put it into the movie, leading to a key moment for Lang's character.
"There's an entire scene where I find my own corpse. I pick up the skull," Lang said. "That was a scene that I suggested and recommended and he liked the idea and understood it."
"That was a scene that was put into the script," he continued. "I thought dramatically, it was cool, but also it's useful. It can advance the narrative. It allows Quaritch to have an existential moment and because it's early in the film, right away you deepen the character."
Lang was right. In "The Way of Water," Quaritch is now a "recombinant," in which all the memories up to his death have been inserted into a Na'vi avatar.
Once he gets on Pandora, with the mission to kill Jack Sully (Sam Worthington), Quaritch goes to where his human form died in the first movie (thanks to the giant arrows shot by Zoe Saldaña's Neytiri). Seeing his human remains fills him with even more rage.
Having now worked with Cameron on two "Avatar" movies, Lang says he's grown comfortable speaking his mind to his director.
"He's extremely collaborative," Lang said of Cameron. "We debate and discuss dialogue quite a lot and change things on the fly and some of that are my additions."
"Avatar: The Way of Water" is currently playing in theaters.