Actress Corianna Kilcher sues director James Cameron

Actress Corianna Kilcher is suing famed director James Cameron for allegedly exploiting her character. The actress, who is of Peruvian indigenous descent, claims that the famed director told his team to base the design of the main character Neytira (played by Zoe Saldana) on her facial features after Cameron saw her in Terrence Malick's 2006 film "The New World."

"This case reveals how one of Hollywood's most powerful filmmakers exploited the biometric identity and cultural heritage of a young Native American girl to create a record-breaking film franchise - without crediting or compensating her - through a series of deliberate, indiscriminate commercial practices," the lawsuit states, according to NBC News.

The lawsuit claims that Cameron and his team based the initial drawings, molds, and 3D renderings of the character on Kilcher, without her compensation or even her knowledge.

"The result was a hugely profitable film franchise that presented itself as an ally of Indigenous struggles, while behind the scenes quietly exploiting a real-life Indigenous girl," the lawsuit states.

Kilcher also claims that in 2010, Cameron gave her a sketch of Neytira with the message:

"Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were making another movie at the time. Next time."

Cameron and his team have previously acknowledged that Kilcher was the inspiration for Neytiri.

“I remember he really liked the face of a girl named Corianna Kilcher, who was in ‘The New World,’ the Pocahontas movie with Colin Farrell,” sculptor and conceptual artist George Schell told Gizmodo in 2009.

"But I had pictures of Mary J. Blige and many other beautiful women of different ethnic backgrounds on my walls," he added.

The lawsuit further alleges that Cameron and his team violated California's new laws against deepfake pornography because Kilcher was 14 years old during the filming of "The New World," while the character Neytiri in Avatar has sexual relations in Na'vi form.

“Cameron took the unique biometric features of a 14-year-old indigenous girl, put them through an industrial production process, and made billions of dollars in profit without ever asking her permission,” said her lead attorney, Arnold J. Peter.

"That's not cinematic art. That's theft," he said.