[This story contains spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash.]
Oona Chaplin is still getting used to being the new star of a billion-dollar franchise. “My mother-in-law came to the L.A. premiere and she’s never done anything like this before, and she was sitting in the back of the car like, ‘Is it just me or does this feel really big?’” Chaplin says. “My manager was like, ‘No, no, you’ve pretty much started at the top. It doesn’t get any bigger than this.’”
Chaplin herself did not quite start out that way. The granddaughter of cinema icon Charlie Chaplin, she’s had acting in her bones her whole life, amassing screen credits over decades after getting a job at the Globe in London fresh out of drama school. Yet while she’s appeared in big projects like Game of Thrones and Black Mirror, she’s never had a stage quite like James Cameron’s Pandora. In Avatar: Fire & Ash, she makes for an explosive villain as Varang, the rageful leader of an aggressive Na’vi tribe called Mangkwan, who’ve been cast aside in their volcano dwellings and are eager to reclaim power. When she teams up with the longtime Sully nemesis Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) — both tactically and, in more of a surprise, romantically — she emerges as the greatest adversary to our heroes yet. Chaplin breathes fiery, chaotic life into the role.
It’s a landmark moment for the 39-year-old actor, with the role both introducing a major new chapter in her career and prodding some reflection on what’s led to it — both in work and in family.
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ from left: Stephen Lang as Miles Quaritch, Oona Chaplin as Varang.
20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection
Your performance is so vivid, and very physical. I’ve spoken with some of your castmates about the freedom they feel in the way James Cameron makes these movies through performance-capture. How did the process coincide with the way you approached Varang?
On our first day, we did the table read in the Volume on June 8, 2017.
So just the other day,
The other day, yes. It was 1746… (Laughs.) No. So we did the table read, and then very quickly after that, we all got swept away to go to Hawaii for a week of immersion. I had a feeling that it was mostly designed for the kids. They were all off in the jungle doing beautiful things together. I was left to my own devices a little bit. I did some amazing stuff in the volcano and there was something about all of it that was like, “This is odd. This feels very much like drama school.” Then we came back and it was six weeks of just preparation — the parkour, the archery, martial arts, movement design, all of these different pieces. I was over the moon, I was so happy.
Then putting on the performance-capture suit and the helmet and then all the little pieces, it felt really easy to me. I felt very much at home. The family vibe that there is on set, there’s a kind of level of intimacy there that’s impossible to fake. People really know each other, love one another, support one another…. And I trained in theater, so for me it was just so pleasurable to be doing something physical that required imagination. It’s really like there’s no camera in between the actors, because within three minutes, you forget about the helmet camera. It felt very intimate, it felt very good, it felt very safe. It felt really natural to me.
It’s also just not a role you’d be associated with, based on your work up to this point.
Finally, I’m out of a corset! I never thought in my life looking the way that I look, that I would be in so much period drama in England. But that’s been most of my career. It was really nice to just get on all fours and crawl around and just get more. My first job out of drama school was at the Globe, and while other people were rehearsing, I’d be off in the corner doing weird things with my skirt and doing these circus kinds of weird things. I’d just kind of be playing. The director there, Dominic Dromgoole, said, “I hope one day you get a job that will allow you to do this kind of thing in the job.” I’ve been thinking about that comment. I think I got that job, Dominic.
People have taken note of Varang’s forwardness with her sexuality, and I think a big reason why is it’s just not especially common in films of this scope, with such elaborate special effects. It was fascinating watching you explore that in this kind of sandbox. It’s in the script to a degree, obviously, but it’s something you were clearly focused on, right?
Yeah, I thought about this. For me, it all stems from her breaking her relationship with Eywa. Eywa is the goddess of biological life. You have this praise of the sacredness of life and the life-giving forces of the universe — so when you break ties with that and it’s no longer sacred, she’s perverting the life-giving forces of sexuality, of sensuality. Sex is no longer about union. It’s about power. That was the shift I played. Now she uses sex as power.
Zoe [Saldaña] moves from the heart with Neytiri. For Varang, we cinched — we tightened around the chest with a strap, so on the set, I had a really tight strap, which I won’t do again because it really hurts. I actually messed up my body a little bit, but I asked for it. I wanted to feel that tightness around the chest. Where does the center of gravity go for me? It dropped into my pelvis, and she moves from there. That made more sense because that’s where the lava of the body is. That’s the heat, the volcanic energy. It related to her sexual power, to want to devour and destroy all of the things.
It’s also a little campy at times, with you and Stephen Lang.
He’s totally game. I felt really safe with him. He’s the person in the world that reminds me the most of my mother, which is really weird.
Wow. I’m going to ask you to say a little bit more about that.
They’re both so original and there’s something of the maverick in my mom that I recognize in Slang. It’s something about their sense of humor and the way that they see things. They’re extremely different, but there’s something in the spirit of them. Finally they met in Paris, and I was like, “Mom, meet the person that reminds me of you.” My mom was like, “Huh?” But yeah, we got along really well, and I trust him implicitly. It was really also very easy to access to tap into those places because with him and with Jim — it just felt very, very safe to go large with.
Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash
20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection
The movie builds toward this epic, fiery battle, and Kiri is ultimately the person who brings about Varang’s defeat by finally summoning Eywa’s full power. What was it like playing that and getting to that moment?
She’s been reacting to her environment since the trauma of the volcano. She’s been in fight or flight, reactive mode — get what you need, go home, destroy this thing. Almost like she’s going with the flow in a really big way. And then when she meets Quaritch, finally she’s met somebody that can meet her at her level of energy. They both have a real strong code of ethics that’s very compatible. And then thirdly, he brings this whole other realm of possibility and her horizons just bust open. It’s amazing. He has strategy, and so she’s learning from him — it’s a bit like Antony and Cleopatra kind of vibe when she thinks that he’s in charge.
Then the ships are all aflame and there’s fire everywhere. Everything’s just fucking awful everywhere — and she is dancing and cheering. (Laughs.) She gets off on fire and the energy of destruction and it makes her afraid — and things that make her afraid ignite her with furious determination. She welcomes the challenge because it makes her stronger. She feeds off her own fear in a way. Everything is going to shit and she’s just like, “Woo, this is hell of a party then.” And then there’s that moment with Kiri — and that’s the first time that she’s been unable to conquer the thing that she’s afraid of, unable to surpass it, to destroy it, to feed off of it, and become bigger than it.
You mentioned the feeling of drama school coming back with this film. You come from an acting family. Can you remember your first spark in wanting to do this, having been surrounded by it growing up?
My mom’s an actress. My granddad was an actor. My great-granddad was a playwright. His dad was an actor. So I’m like fifth-generation, maybe more. (Laughs.) Growing up with it was just a part of my life. Telling stories was just a part of my life — there was something about the possibility of actually making a life from it that maybe not everybody has. And I resisted it because I come from a family of genius. What if I go and I do it and I’m not as good? And I know it’s hard and it looks like a very uncertain life. But then I did a play in my school, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I just got the bug. I left the stage and I burst into tears and I was like, damn it.
When I get a job, I work really hard, but I didn’t always try very hard to get jobs. Then there’s the story of life, which also really fascinates me. I have a really rich and full life outside of work. My life is fucking cool. I’m crafting it for my kids, I’m crafting it for my mom. Storytelling is just a really big part of my life, and I do my darnedest to honor my lineage, my heritage, on both sides of my family.
Can you connect that to the experience of making Avatar?
Coming into Avatar was a trip because it weaves together so many aspects of my life that I really care about that are in my heart. I live out in nature — I’m turning a lawn into a food forest right now, and we’re on 20 acres, and we have several families that live together and are raising our children — so nature is a part of my life. I love connecting with the cycles of time and just listening to the birds and rolling around on the ground. Indigenous culture for me is something I’ve put a lot of energy and time into, because indigenous technology fascinates me, the medicines and all of the things that they can heal with plants.
Then cinema and storytelling and visual effects and art and all of these things that wove together. It was a real gift for me. Jim Cameron is the most similar person that I can think of to Charlie Chaplin, even though they have very different flavors. I feel like he’s got something of him in him. They’re birds of a feather.
And speaking of honoring your lineage, I was thinking about the physicality of what this performance requires, in relation to your grandfather’s legacy.
Yeah, for sure. You always have to embody a character, but usually you’re just embodying it [head to chest]. To be able to use my full physicality, it’s definitely there — and that’s something that he did better than anyone.