Whether you’re a fan or not, you know that Avatar: The Way of Water took a long time to come out. A long, long time. In fact, it took so long that even actors who are in the movie found themselves shocked at the reveal that the movie was finally in theaters. That’s the case with Edie Falco, who went on The View this week and commented that she thought the movie had already come out years ago.
This happened because The Sopranos and Nurse Jackie star filmed her scenes in the epic movie back in 2018. It’s not uncommon for movies with heavy use of CGI to premiere a long time after the cast films their scenes, but with Avatar: The Way of Water there were the added elements of a whole franchise being developed at once and a pandemic happening while this happened. During the interview, Falco revealed that not only had she thought the movie had come out years ago, but that it was a box office flop and that’s why people never mentioned it:
“The second ‘Avatar,’ the one that’s coming out, I think I shot four years ago. And then I’ve been busy, and doing stuff, and somebody mentioned ‘Avatar,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, I guess it came out and didn’t do very well,’ because I didn’t hear anything.”
Who Does Edie Falco Play in Avatar: The Way of Water?
Falco is one of the few humans that populate the story of Avatar: The Way of Water. She plays Ardmore, a U.S. Military General that’s kind of a substitute for the first movie’s Stephen Lang, but more ruthless and with a different mission: unobtanium is not the only thing that the United States are looking to extract from Pandora anymore.
Falco also talked about her character's morals during the interview, and commented that the way to play her was as someone who’s absolutely sure they are doing the right thing. In Ardmore’s mind, she’s the leader of a mission that will help make Earth a better place, but of course she ignores what that means for the Na’vi. Finally, Falco commented that even though the James Cameron movie is out of the realm of anything she’s ever done, she was a little disappointed that she was cast as a human because she “wanted to be blue”, but celebrated the fact that she got to wear the cool exoskeleton that is displayed in a new clip.
Avatar: The Way of Water takes place 14 years after the events of the first movie. Now, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have several kids and they have to fight once again to protect Pandora from an alien threat. The cast also features Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Jemaine Clement, CCH Pounder, Bailey Bass, Cliff Curtis, and many others.
Avatar: The Way of Water is playing now in theaters. You can watch Falco's interview below: