James Cameron Champions Zoe Salda?a’s Oscar Win: The ‘Avatar’ Family Has Always Known Her to Be a ‘World-Class Performer’
Zoe Salda?a is an Oscar winner, and James Cameron is over the moon. The “Avatar” director shared his reaction to his leading lady’s victory by telling Variety: “I was so happy to see Zoe acknowledged as the world-class performer we, in the ‘Avatar’ family, have always known her to be. Her acceptance speech was a noble reminder of what immigrant families bring to the U.S. and to Hollywood.”
In her Oscars speech, Salda?a proudly referred to herself as the “proud child of immigrant parents” while revealing she had become the first American of Dominican decent to win an Academy Award.
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“And I know I will not be the last. I hope,” she added. “The fact that I’m getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish — my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted, this is for my grandmother.”
Cameron directed Salda?a in 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” He’s currently in post-production on the third “Avatar” movie and has long been one of Salda?a’s biggest supporters. After her Golden Globe win in January, Salda?a told press that Cameron was one of the first people to get in touch with her and send along congratulations.
“I was sitting in the audience, and I received a message from James Cameron, who’s somewhere in New Zealand right now, cutting ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash.’ And he, after all these years, believes in me,” she said. “So that, to me, nourishes my desire to continue growing as an artist.”
Cameron told Variety as part of a Salda?a cover story last year that the Oscars are overdue to recognize her work as Neytiri in the “Avatar” franchise.
“I’ve worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a caliber less than that,” the director said. “But because in my film she’s playing a ‘CG character,’ it kind of doesn’t count in some way, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. She can go from regal to, in two nanoseconds, utterly feral. The woman is ferocious. She is a freaking lioness.”
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is set for release on Dec. 18 from Disney and 20th Century Studios.
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