Some might have read about this shameless money grab by the actress Q'orianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas. She claims that the Neytiri design is based on her and now in 2026 seeks millions of dollars for using her likeness. It's not even the shameless money grab that is shocking here, but a complete, embarrassing lack of ANY kind of basic research on the subject. The process of designing Neytiri is describing in details and documented with photos and in three books and a documentary on it has been featured on dvd and blu-ray extras since the original release of the film.
Years before the movie was greenlit, and before Neytiri was even called Neytiri (she was called Zuileka in the original script), James Cameron was doodling and drawing sketches, trying to see how his idea of a Navi design - Large feline eyes and nose, would look like on a human face. What artists always do to get a symmetry and proportions right, is use a sketch model. For example, the famous artist Alex Ross hires models or uses TV personalities as a body reference or basis of a character. That is also what Cameron did to see how the Na'vi design would look. But since he was just sketching and drawing proofs of concept, he didn't have a model so he just used what he could find in a magazine. In this case, a photo of Kilcher that he saw in a magazine. He used her to sketch Navi features to show how a human with Navi features would look like. Since its a completely normal thing to do for any artist, not only he didn't hide that fact, he openly spoke about it in his own Art Book, Tech Noir (see below)
Not only that, he , according to Kilcher herself in the lawsuit, had met her and proudly told her that in one of her earlier sketches he used her as a basis for character study sketches. He even invited her to his office and gave her a signed print. According to the filling, "Cameron personally invited Kilcher to visit his office. When she arrived approximately one week later, Cameron was out and a member of his staff presented Kilcher with a framed print of a sketch Cameron had made. Attached to the print was a handwritten note from Cameron reading: “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
The design philosophy of the Na'vi was that the lower part of the face would remain unchanged while the top would be changed to exaggerated feline features. As Cameron said in his Art Book (see photo above), the final design would be of course, based off an actress that will be cast in the part. And so it was. First she looked like the actress Yunjin Kim who portrayed Neytiri for the demo (photo below from Making of Avatar book)
Neytiri was then later designed off of Zoe Saldana's likeness, and of course any actual likeness of previous models would be discarded.
Countless extras on dvds, videos and books describe how Zoe Saldana was scanned, and even lifecast and her face sculpt was then altered into a Navi by Stan Winston Studios. Below, Zoe Saldana getting a lifecast from Stan Winston Studios for a Neytiri face design. Photo from Making of Avatar Trilogy book and Screnshot from Collector's Edition DVD extras
Kilcher (among other random people from magazine covers) was just a base face for a sketch pad years before the movie was even greenlit just to doodle up a big Navi eyes and cat nose on a human being. She is not the face of the Neytiri that is in the actual movie. Nothing was taken from Kilcher, as her features were removed and replaced by Zoe's, while the actual Na'vi features like alien feline eyes and cat nose were of course, fictional fantasy features. Below, photos from Making of Avatar book and more comparisons
Watch an excerpt from DVD extras HERE
It's shocking that the actress is so misinformed and runs with it. Na'vi have human features. Only the eyes are of different proportions and the nose is a cat nose. To draw a design of Neytiri originally to see what a Navi would look like, Cameron took Kilcher’d (and others’) likeness and built on it on a sketch pad to present how Navi would look like. But years later (and many sketches later) when Zoe was cast, Zoe was the model for Neytiri and the version that ended up in the movie and all the official media. The process of designing the final Neytiri based on Zoe has been well documented in documentaries and at least three books: they took Zoe’s face and left everything below the nose unaltered, while the nose and eyes were those of a feline creature. Kilecher or her lawyer would know that with minimal research. Minimal. So an idea sketch that used a model to see how one can alter human face for a Navi used at one point Kilcher, at another, an African tribal woman, and others (see below, from James Cameron's Tech Noir Art Book)
Just to doodle over the face see turn it into a Navi alien. But an actual Neytiri is indeed created from Zoes scan and lifecast. Thats all in the books and the dvd extras. What a backstabbing person Ms Kilcher is, more than 20 years later (the sketches were made many years before the movie was even greenlit) she suddenly remembers and sues him for millions. Without an ounce of research. Terrible person
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