Indigenous actor Q’orianka Kilcher has filed a lawsuit against famous director James Cameron, Walt Disney, Weta Digital, and other production companies, accusing them of “stealing her facial features” to create a popular character in Avatar.
In a complaint submitted earlier this week, the Peruvian actor and activist claimed that Cameron extracted, replicated, and commercially deployed her facial likeness in the creation of Neytiri, a character portrayed by Zoe Saldaña in all three films of the franchise.
The documents filed with the District Court for the Central District of California claim that the New Zealand filmmaker instructed his design team to use a promotional photograph of Kilcher from the LA Times, taken for the 2005 film The New World, as the foundation for Neytiri.
The court filing calls Avatar a highly profitable film franchise that presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles, while exploiting a genuine Indigenous youth behind the scenes.
According to the court documents, Kilcher became aware of the alleged use of her likeness in August 2025, after viewing a clip from an interview with Cameron that was originally published on YouTube in April 2024.
The filing indicates that in the video, the filmmaker provided a guided overview of his career, including the production of Avatar.
For the first time in a public setting, Cameron openly admitted the complete truth about Neytiri’s design.
He is also reported to have described the addition of Kilcher’s likeness as a keystone in the design process of the blue-skinned Na’vi.
In the interview, Cameron mentioned having met Kilcher at an event after the release of the first Avatar film, as noted in the complaint.
The court documents also claim that Cameron provided Kilcher with a note stating, “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
Read more: James Cameron moves to New Zealand, expresses disapproval for Trump administration
