In the lead-up to James Cameron’s first two “Avatar” movies, the process of performance capture was mostly obscured. The magic trick of how living, breathing performers became majestic alien creatures on the strange world of Pandora, remained mostly secret.
But all of that is changing with the release of “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the third film in the saga, which hits theaters on Dec. 19. Not only is there a wonderfully in-depth two-part documentary that just debuted on Disney+, but star Stephen Lang, who appears in the movies as the now-resurrected Quaritch, has made a short documentary about how The Method, a system of acting developed by Russian theater mastermind Konstantin Stanislavski, intermingles and informs performance capture, the technology used to bring the actors’ performances to life in the “Avatar” films. It’s informative and entertaining and you can watch it below.
TheWrap spoke to Lang about how performance capture and The Method are married in the production of “Avatar,” how Quaritch has changed in the latest film and how his own experience has transformed as he went from fulfilling a more traditional performance to fully embracing performance capture.
I’ve never thought about Method acting and performance capture going hand-in-hand. Could you talk about your mindset going into the performance capture space, having done more traditional acting in the first film?
Well, let me ask you this, did you find my thesis convincing?
I did. I also loved that you said that The Method is not one thing but rather whatever method you use that helps you arrive at a performance.
Well, one of the things I say is that Method is almost a climate, a condition, in a way. And I know that recently, and there have always been actors within the business who have derided The Method, and I think usually that comes out of having had probably an experience on set with someone who was maybe being very indulgent or obstreperous, or using The Method, as it were, as an excuse for some kind of bad behavior.
There’s been bad behavior on sets. I get that, but I don’t think The Method really is to blame for that. It’s like any other tool. I think it can be abused, but I would say that even those actors who are skeptical or downright dismissive of The Method are far more influenced by it than they know or will admit, because, as I try to say, it’s almost like climate change. It doesn’t matter whether you dismiss it or disdain it. It is right here now.
It’s very difficult for me to imagine that there are any actors at all who have not been influenced by the work that began appearing in the late ‘40s and into the ‘50s, by actors such as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift. It just found its way into the emotional vocabulary of acting, it seems to me now, but now again I’m an old, longtime member of the Actor’s Studio, and I can tell you from experience that there are actors there who — and not only at the Studio, but in other places as well — who I consider to be kind of slaves of The Method.
I did a production one time of a classic American play, a play by Odets, who is kind of a Method writer, actually. And there was an actor in that who was so deeply wed to The Method that it really was quite frustrating, I felt. And it’s almost as if the technique itself completely got in the way of the performance. That’s what can happen when it’s not used properly. And when I say when it’s used properly, I’m not even completely convinced of what I mean by when it’s used properly. The Method, to me, is as fluid as anything else. One of the things I do say in my piece is that, essentially, I need to reinvent the acting process for myself every time I go into a role. And that’s not just lip service, it’s really the way it is. Every part requires a different trajectory. It requires a different angle of approach, a different window or door, however you want to phrase it. Some parts operate very well by some material choice that you can make. Other parts find their genesis in a line of poetry. You just need to be open to all of that, and The Method is part of that.
Going into performance capture, what were your expectations? And what did you discover about the union of The Method and performance capture?
I had the opportunity to witness performance capture without having the responsibility or pleasure of doing it. Because, as you point out, in the original “Avatar,” I was live-action until the very, very end of that shoot. I did do two or three days of performance capture in the AMP suit battle that I have with Jake Sully. That was my first taste of it, that goes back to 2008 or 2009 or something like that, but I was very pleased to get to do it, because I felt all along that performance capture, is the defining process of these films. It’s right at the heart of what we do.
It’s also worth noting that in “Way of Water” and in “Fire and Ash,” we have young actors, actors who we got from the time they were eight or nine years old, who are now 18/19, years old. And you know what acting is to them? Performance capture. That’s how they learned acting. Which isn’t to say that they’re not adept and not learning acting in conventional film and on stage, because that’s all part of it too.
I would say that performance capture is evolutionary, because there are tools that are new for in order for us to accomplish the objectives that have remained the same or eternal – which is to say, truth, authenticity, spontaneity, whatever we consider to be important to deliver the truest representation of who we’re playing. Whatever is necessary for us to deliver the absolute Ttuth of the scene that we’re playing with other actors and so that is, to me, that’s an evolutionary process. The Method was actually revolutionary. The Method was a stick of dynamite being thrown into 19th-century oratorical acting. There were reasons for that. It had to do with the size of the stage. It had to do with the lack of amplification, and it had to do with what represented truth and entertainment for audiences. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I like to think about acting, I like to kind of massage it.
You talk about how, for much of the first two movies, the acting process was kept mysterious. Did you campaign to explain this side of things?
I didn’t campaign then and I don’t campaign now. I say it in my piece, that I find it wearying and frustrating that people within the business don’t have an appreciation or understanding of what performance capture actually is, that they regard it as some form of human storyboarding, as if we’re templates for an animator. If you look at the side-by-sides, nothing could be further from the truth. And in fact, in my estimation, performance capture, if anything, represents acting at its most challenging, because you need to bring your full imaginative apparatus into play. And it’s also very remarkable in terms of ensemble acting, because everyone is bringing their imaginations into play. And what if you and I are imagining different things – the creature that we’re facing is huge, as far as I’m concerned, but not so big to you. Know what I mean? It really demands a certain type of openness and work and discussion. It prompts discussion. It’s fascinating stuff.
Because the actual shot decisions are made later on, what is the process like, as an actor, of seeing what Cameron has decided on in the final version of the film?
For Jim Cameron, I don’t envy him the task, because I think it’s a little bit like being in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. I go in there to buy corn flakes, and I’m confronted with so many choices that I end up leaving with getting nothing at all. That can happen. Performance capture offers you unlimited options as to how you’re going to cover a scene. And Jim, believe me, he goes through many of them. Thank goodness, he has a very powerful sense of narrative, of how he wants, what’s going to keep things rolling along for me, watching it.
I’m usually quite enthralled and delighted with what happens, understanding that for me, “Avatar” is about Quaritch. But I’m also mature enough to understand that there are other characters who are very, very important to the saga as well. And the more expanded the saga gets, the more characters there are who have to be served and serviced. And their stories demand to be told. You have such powerful actors and such powerful writing for these characters that that accounts, in my estimation, for the length of the film. He writes like a novelist.
Is it gratifying that people are discussing Quaritch so much when it comes to “Fire and Ash?” That all of this preparation has really amounted to something that resonates with audience?
I’m the advocate for this character. I’m courageous advocate. For good or ill, he’s my guy. I want the palette to be as expansive and as wide as it possible and as deep as it possibly can be. I think in the first film, he was a good villain. I’m quite comfortable at this point saying he’s a villain, even though, you interview any villain and they’re going to say, “Well, I don’t think of him as a villain. Never think of him as a villain.” Objectively speaking, I read the script and I understand his function in the script. However, if that’s what he was in the first one, and if he remained that in the second with no further elaboration, and in the third, it would be completely pointless. It would be repetitive. It would be more than redundant. It would be boring. But he’s got his own story to tell. The stakes are very, very high for him as well. And I find it gratifying, is the word you used, and I would use it. I find it incredibly gratifying that people find the story worthwhile and interesting, and that that that people, they can despise him, but they can also respect him right away. We want the feelings to be complicated.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” arrives in theaters on December 19.
