Kilcher’s team argued that the “lucrative” film franchise “presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles, all while silently exploiting a real Indigenous youth behind the scenes”.
The document said she had no knowledge of the use of her face until she met Cameron at an event in 2010, when he allegedly told her he had a gift for her – a framed signed sketch of Neytiri.
His picture, it is claimed, included the handwritten note: “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
Her team said producers had not, in fact, tried to hire her for a role, as the note suggested, even after her talent agent at the time had tried to get her an audition.
She only learned late last year that closely Cameron had apparently followed her facial features for Neytiri, when an interview was shared on social media around the release of film three, Avatar: Fire and Ash.
In the interview, Cameron namechecked Kilcher and her LA Times cover as the “actual source”, the claim noted. “This is actually her… her lower face. She had a very interesting face.”
Kilcher said: “When I received Cameron’s sketch, I believed it was a personal gesture, at most a loose inspiration tied to casting and my activism.
“Millions of people opened their hearts to Avatar because they believed in its message and I was one of them.
“I never imagined that someone I trusted would systematically use my face as part of an elaborate design process and integrate it into a production pipeline without my knowledge or consent. That crosses a major line. This act is deeply wrong.”
Kilcher played Pocahontas in Terrence Malick’s 2005 film The New World, and Ka’iulani in Princess Kaiulani in 2009. In 2020, she had a recurring role on the Paramount show Yellowstone.