Stephen Lang and Oona Chaplin’s Quaritch and Varang really brought the heat to Avatar: Fire and Ash, and, speaking with Men’s Journal, the pair opened up about filming one of director James Cameron’s favorite scenes—one the internet has also dubbed, well, “horny.”
The third film in the Avatar franchise, out now on Digital, Fire and Ash finds Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) facing off against a now-Na’vi Quaritch and the aggressive Mangkwan tribe, led by Varang.
The Mangkwan are a group of pirates who resent the all-powerful Eywa, after a volcanic eruption decimated their lands. Covering themselves with ash and stealing from others, they aim to spread their fire cult throughout Pandora.
Seeing the group as a partner in his own fight against the Na’vi, Quaritch forms an alliance with Varang, in a trippy tent scene that might just be the steamiest of the series.
Dubbing it “horny,” The Hollywood Reporterdescribed the scene in question as a “sensual, druggy, S&M-tinged meeting” of the minds. Gizmodoalso called it a “sexually charged flirt session.”
Paste, meanwhile, called the movie as a whole “surprisingly horny,” before zeroing in on the yurt moment. Writing about the ideas of consent and Varang’s “light blade play” in the sequence, the publication concluded that, despite discourse to the contrary, sex scenes like these can benefit a project.
Actors Sound Off on ‘Horny’ Scene
When asked about the spicy adjective being used to describe their pivotal scene, Lang joked to Men’s Journal that feeling horny is “just sort of an ongoing condition for me, it seemed completely normal to me.”
More seriously, he then added, “if I had to characterize what makes that particular scene sexy and provocative, for me it has to do with the domination and subjugation aspect of it. There’s a little bit of back and forth on it, which portends an interesting life ahead for them.”
Joking that Men’s Journal “asked a deep question,” so, “let’s go deep,” Chaplin said it all comes back to trauma.
“Trauma creates unhealthy power dynamics. And unhealthy power dynamics make for kinky content,” she explained. “The kind of pure love that you felt with Nyteri and Jake, that was based on, that doesn’t feel sexy, it feels very idyllic, that is one version of it.”
“When you talk about these two, particularly for Varang, she sexualizes things because she has an unhealthy power dynamic with life,” she continued, getting a surprised “Wow” out of her costar. “I thought about it a lot. I could give a Ted Talk,” she added.
James Cameron’s Favorite Scene
20th Century Studios
In previous interviews, writer/director Cameron cited the scene as one of his favorites, from both a writing and performance perspective. It’s also a scene he fought to keep fully intact in the finished film, after his editing team reportedly wanted to cut the sequence in half.
“I said: ‘Guys, you’re about to become unemployed — put it back, every line,’” Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter of what he called the “erotic” moment, also revealing that Chaplin actually auditioned with the scene.
“He’s very enthusiastic about everything and passionate about everything,” Chaplin told Men’s Journal when asked whether the actors could feel Cameron’s passion for the sequence during filming.
“I think from the get, he did feel like a child…when he showed me the scene the first time when I came down for reshoots, he felt really giddy like a kid,” she continued. “Really happy with the way that it looked and felt. He had a smile that was genuinely happy. I knew that it pleased him. I was really happy he defended that scene.”
Lang, however, said he doesn’t really know “how hard” Cameron actually “had to fight” to keep the scene intact.
“He says what he says and that’s the way it’s gonna be,” he laughed. “But I do know repeatedly there were people who said, ‘You know, the information that gets exchanged in that, the forward moment of the narrative could be accomplished in 60 seconds.’ That’s really just not the point of this scene, is it?”
Watching the Scene for the First Time
There’s a vast difference between filming something on the set of an Avatar movie and seeing the finished product. The actors all do their performances via motion capture suits, before a very intricate visual effects process establishes the shots used. Those are then rendered fully, resulting in what we all see on screen. The process is one of the many filmmaking techniques explained in detail in the 3+ hours of special features included on the digital release of Avatar: Fire and Ash.
In short, what the actors see on set is a totally different beast from what audiences see in theaters, or now, the comfort of their own homes.
“You have faith, we have faith that it’s gonna look spectacular,” Lang said of that disconnect. “We also have a good idea what it’s going to look like because we’ve got the mockups, the templates, for us to see. But there’s no denying the thrill of actually watching it in its finished product. It’s colorful, it’s dramatic, it’s, in its way, a spooky, scene.”
Chaplin, meanwhile, said she was impressed by level of detail added to the final product.
“You read it in the script that [Varang] has all these totems and things, that when you see them, you feel the amount of creative genius that went into building the set,” she shared. “And to also feel met in my really wanting to tell the story and honor her trauma and her history, to really feel met by hundreds of people down the line, it was really cool.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash is available now exclusively on Digital.
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Author: Brian Particelli
