Zoe Saldaña was 28 when she signed on to play Neytiri in Avatar. She has since joked that she could be in her 50s by the time James Cameron’s planned sequels bring the story to a close. That would mean spending nearly three decades with one character — an unusually large part of an actor’s life to spend on Pandora.
A role that grew beyond one film
The first Avatar became a global phenomenon, and Saldaña has returned to Neytiri as the story has continued. When she accepted the role, she could hardly have known how far the franchise would stretch.
Her joke about finishing in her 50s captures something a list of sequels cannot: the distance between taking a role at 28 and still playing that character decades later.
Growing older alongside Neytiri
Returning to one character over many years gives Saldaña a rare kind of continuity. It also means approaching Neytiri at different stages of her own life, while the films keep bringing audiences back to Pandora.
In my view, that is the most interesting part of Saldaña’s Avatar journey. The franchise’s scale is remarkable, but the more personal story is an actor growing older alongside a character she first played in her 20s. How Neytiri’s story will end remains unknown from the details available here.
When that ending does arrive, Saldaña could be in her 50s. Neytiri will have accompanied her through much of her adult career.
