The news has surfaced that James Cameron and The Walt Disney Company are facing a lawsuit brought forth by actress Q’orianka Kilcher. The 36-year-old star alleges that the famed director, without her knowledge or consent, utilized her facial features to create the character of Neytiri in Avatar.
Q’orianka Kilcher reportedly sues James Cameron for using her ‘likeness’ in Avatar. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. According to Variety, Cameron came across her published photographs and directed his design team to model Neytiri’s character on Kilcher’s facial features. Cameron reportedly acknowledged this in a viral broadcast interview. The complaint states, “Plaintiff never consented to Defendants’ use of her likeness, either in Avatar or in any related product or promotion.”
Kilcher claims that she first met Cameron briefly at a charity event shortly after the release of Avatar in 2009. A week later, one of Cameron’s staff members presented her with a framed print of a sketch he had made. The Titanic director penned a note, “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
Kilcher expressed her dismay, stating, “I never imagined that someone I trusted would systematically use my face as part of an elaborate design process and integrate it into a production pipeline without my knowledge or consent. That crosses a major line. This act is deeply wrong.” She further remarked, “It is deeply disturbing to learn that my face, as a 14-year-old girl, was taken and used without my knowledge or consent to help create a commercial asset that has generated enormous value for Disney and Cameron.”
Arnold P. Peter of Peter Law Group, lead counsel for Kilcher, stated, “What Cameron did was not inspiration, it was extraction… That is not filmmaking. That is theft.” As of the writing of this article, Cameron has not commented on the matter.
