Māori actor Cliff Curtis says he drew deeply on his own ancestors for his part in the new Avatar movie.
Avatar: The Way of Water brings back many of the core cast, including director James Cameron and his lead actor Sam Worthington as Sully.
The franchise's first movie was released in 2009 and is the highest-grossing film of all time at the global box office with a total haul of over US$2.9 billion to date.
But the sequel's box office success is not guaranteed with the cast and crew all hoping a return to Pandora will mean a return to cinemas for audiences who've been hit by COVID-19 cancellations and movie delays over the past few years.
This time, it's all about family, and not just the Sullys as the new Avatar introduces us to the reef people of Pandora, the Metkayina.
Their leader is Tonowari, played by Curtis.
"The part of me that is Tonowari is an idealised world which belongs to my ancestors, belongs to a time which exists in my dreams," he told Newshub in Sydney after a screening of 20 minutes of the film.
"One of my heroes since passed, my uncle Toby - there was a dignity in his time, which I idealised and so Tonowari for me is an idealised version of my own ancestors, that we exist in a time when the connection between the land and the sea where we live, where we draw sustenance from, it's symbiotic, it's the same thing.
"We're submerging with the creatures of the ocean. We have stories about that, about our relationship with dolphins and whales. We have stories about giant eagles we used to fly on back. In Aotearoa, back home, these stories exist, but they exist almost like a mythology, and so Tonowari is a manifestation of this."
Curtis said Tonowari is a "romanticised version of what my ancestors lived like". He said he's counting down the days until the film us released and his whanau get to see him on the big screen.
"I get too over-enthusiastic about it. I've never been this excited about something I've worked on, in terms of exceeding my own expectations of what's possible and what we do in cinema - it's that great to me," Curtis said.
"I can't wait for my kids to see it, I can't wait for the audience to discover it and to experience it on a visceral level."
Avatar: The Way of Water will release in cinemas on December 15.
