Jack Champion & Trinity Jo-Li Bliss Interview: Avatar The Way Of Water

Avatar: The Way of Water, set more than ten years after the events of Avatar, explores a new part of Pandora through the Sully family. Jake Sully and Neytiri have built a family and now lead their people, but when the humans return to Pandora and posw an even more dangerous threat than before, they may need to go against their nature and run. Neytiri and Jake find refuge with the Metkayina clan, but even among a new group of NNa’vi, they may still be targeted by RDA.

Avatar: The Way Of Water introduces the next generation of heroes on Pandora with Neytiri and Jack Sully’s kids, Miles “Spider” Scorro, and an entirely new Na’vi clan. Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion) is a teenage human who was born and has grown up on Pandora. He was orphaned by the first war between the Na’vi and humans. Tuktirey “Tuk” (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) is the youngest of Jake and Neytiri’s children. She’s eight years old, but precocious and confident in her abilities.

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Screen Rant spoke with Jack Champion and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss about their Avatar: The Way of Water characters Spider and Tuk. Bliss breaks down the Sully family dynamic while Champion gives insight into Spider’s feelings about the returning humans. They also discussed the motion capture process and what family means to each of their characters.

Jack Champion & Trinity Jo-Li Bliss on Avatar: The Way of Water

Screen Rant: First of all, amazing job on this film. I don’t think I’ve ever been so immersed in a film in my life. Can you tell me a little bit about your characters, Tuk and Spider?

Trinity Jo-Li Bliss: I play Tuktirey, and everyone calls her Tuk. The youngest of Jake and Neytiri. And she has this big heart, and she’s super curious, observing everything around her. And she is that youngest that kind of wants everything to be okay in the family. And of course, just wants the family to be okay. And that’s a big part of this film. The family sticking together, protecting each other. So the family’s the most important thing to her. She’ll do anything to protect them.

Jack Champion: I play Spider. He is a human, born and raised on Pandora, but I think at his core, he feels conflicted that he is a human, but he feels so much like a Na’vi and a part of the culture and the people, and he feels like one of the people. But obviously at the end of the day, he’s an alien. So it’s really cool to play a character with such deep inner conflict.

Spider is a human orphan product of the war. Can you talk to me about how he feels about the sky people returning?

Jack Champion: I think at first he fully hates it and everything, but I think his view on things definitely change a lot throughout the movie.

Can you talk to me about the Sully family dynamic and how Tuk fits into that?

Trinity Jo-Li Bliss: The Sully family, brother from another mother, and then of course Kiri and Lo’ak and Neteyam, and Jake and Neytiri, of course. We’re a family. Family is your fortress, and our greatest weakness is that we stick together. Our greatest strength is that we stick together.

Tuk is the youngest and everyone’s really protective of her, and I think she sees that as underestimation, but she doesn’t underestimate herself. So she makes up for it. She is quite gregarious and tenacious and just wants to prove that she can do what the older kids are doing. I guess where she fits into that family, she’s that youngest that wants everything to be okay in the family, and really admires her parents too.

James Cameron is on the cutting edge of filmmaking. This film is incredibly immersive and incredible. Can you talk to me about the filming process, especially the free diving and underwater capture?

Jack Champion: I think it’s cool that we did underwater performance capture for the first time. It’s never been done before. We had so much preparation going into it that we definitely felt comfortable and ready to take it on, even though it’s a really big thing to do. Especially, you were eight, seven. Yeah, it was a lot.

Trinity Jo-Li Bliss: You were 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

Jack Champion: 16. Yeah, I did a performance capture for only two years. And then when I was in New Zealand, I got to wear my full face scuba mask, which was a whole nother thing.

That is incredible. This film is really, at its core, about family. What does that mean to you and your characters?

Trinity Jo-Li Bliss: Family is a big part of this film, and especially the Sullys, just going through all of this and having to ride and roll with the many ways of water and how they just stick together and protect each other. And I think, at least for me, after watching the film and just being a part of the film and just the story and the heart in the story and the family in the story, it’s made me realize how, when we’re together with the people we love, we just really have to tell them that we love each other and make the most of the time. And our family is our fortress.

Jack Champion: I think Spider feels like he’s always wanted a family, a true family. And I feel like he feels that potential of a true family in the Sullys, but he also can’t help but feel a little bit disconnected because not only is he human, but also he may not be fully accepted by everyone. And also with Quaritch, I don’t know, he feels very conflicted about what true family even means.

About Avatar: The Way of Water

Over a decade after the events of Avatar Jake Sully and Neytiri are living on Pandora with their family leading their people. However, when a familiar threat returns to restart a war they thought had ended years ago they must once again work together to protect their planet, their people, but most importantly their family.

Check out our other Avatar: The Way of Water interviews here:

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Avatar: The Way of Water will be playing in theaters on December 16.