Why James Cameron Cast Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash Villain

Oona Chaplin was living in a treehouse in the Cuban jungle that she built herself when she got the call to audition for James Cameron.

“There are not a lot of things that would have gotten me out of my treehouse, but a call to meet Jim Cameron definitely did,” says Chaplin, who is probably best known for playing Robb Stark’s doomed bride-to-be Talisa in Game of Thrones.

Not to mention, the potential role was a big one: Playing Varang, the ferocious and sensuous leader of the Ash People in Cameron’s new film, Avatar: Fire and Ash.

“It was one of the most surreal moments of my life,” Chaplin says. “He’s one of my heroes — Aliens! Terminator! Titanic! I was very starstruck. But very quickly he very much put me at ease because he just felt like a kid that wants to play. We did a scene, and he was all involved and engaged. He put his full body into it.”

After the scene, the ecological-minded duo bonded over discussing topics like soil permaculture.

For Cameron, the meeting radically shook up the race to play Varang, with the director calling Chaplin’s audition “mesmerizing.”

“There were three other actresses up for the part that I had wanted to work with,” Cameron tells The Hollywood Reporter. “They were movie stars. They were fantastic. But there was something (Chaplin) just locked into. There’s a sexuality; there’s a dominating psychology, and there’s a lot of fury. There are a lot of layers to what she’s doing there and the forces that are driving her. Oona was able to move fluidly back and forth between those in a way that I wasn’t seeing with the others.”

“They’re fantastic actors,” he added of the other unnamed contenders. “And I’m sure, in retrospect, I could have cast any of them. But my instinct is to always go with the actor that understands the character the best.”

Early reviews seem to have validated Cameron’s decision, with many singling out Chaplin’s performance as injecting some uniquely volatile, scene-stealing energy into the franchise.

On set at Manhattan Beach Studios, Chaplin was a bit surprised by Cameron, finding him to be intensely engaged with the actors during the production’s performance-capture sessions.

“He is so physically and psychologically and spiritually invested in every moment of every scene,” Chaplin says. “(Some) directors sit down and have a vision and kind of direct from (over there). But he gets in the scene with you. The other really big surprise was the amount of time that he would give for discussion. The technology allows him to have all of this time with the actors to really get to the heart of the scene.”

At the film’s Los Angeles premiere, Chaplin got to see her performance in full for the first time and marveled at how true to life her character looked even when covered in “digital makeup.”

“The mind-bending part of it is that, in all essence, it really is me,” she says. “I can even tell when it’s my stunt double doing something because she has a different spirit of movement.”

Chaplin — who is the granddaughter of Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin — adds that the experience of working on Fire and Ash has rekindled her desire to take on more roles after having stepped back a bit from the craft.

“I’ve been really dedicated to being a mom for the past two-and-a-half years, and I didn’t want to work,” she says. “But for the first time, I’ve been feeling, just coincidentally in line with the release of this film, I actually think I’m ready to go back to work. So I really hope that this part can lead to more jobs.”

Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters Friday.