Behind the Kiss: Did James Cameron Use a Stunt Double for Sigourney Weaver in Avatar: Fire and Ash?

So yes, there is a Spider-Kiri kiss in Avatar: Fire and Ash, and yes, the internet did the age math the second the scene hit social. Sigourney Weaver is 76. Jack Champion is 21 now, and he was 15 when they shot that moment. Here is the part a lot of people are missing: the two actors did not kiss each other. James Cameron staged it with doubles and VFX so the moment works on screen without crossing any lines.

What actually happens in the scene (and why everyone is talking about it)

Kiri, a Na'vi teen, and Spider, the adopted human son of Jake and Neytiri, share a brief, awkward first-kiss moment by a waterfall. On screen, it plays as tentative and sweet. Off screen, people clocked the real-life ages of the actors and wondered how the production handled it.

How Cameron shot the kiss without Weaver and Champion actually kissing

Cameron broke the action into pieces. Champion kissed a girl his own age. Weaver kissed someone else. The production then stitched those elements together with the rest of the scene the two leads performed together, so it looks like Spider and Kiri share the same kiss even though the actors never did. Cameron said they rehearsed and played the whole scene minus the lip-to-lip part, and that a cheek kiss for Weaver was considered acceptable. There are a lot of guardrails around intimacy on set; this was one of the few spots where they had to get slightly inauthentic to stay within the rules.

"I believed it. It feels so genuine between the two of them, and any concern about Jack's real age and my real age, I just don't see it there," Weaver said, adding that Champion is "terrific."

Why the kiss is there at all

Inside the story, Cameron wanted young, messy, early-teen feelings. He says some folks on the film initially leaned toward a sibling-style bond between Spider and Kiri. He pushed the other way: awkward first love that neither of them knows how to handle. The image he chased is Kiri being visibly taller, leaning down to kiss Spider by the waterfall. That height mismatch is personal for him: in middle school, the girls were taller than he was, and he still went for it. Weaver, who has been tall her whole life, backed the visual idea too and liked that the pair looks mismatched.

Quick stats

• Movie: Avatar: Fire and Ash (the third installment)
• Director: James Cameron
• Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore
• Rotten Tomatoes (so far): 66%
• Runtime: 3h 17m
• Release date: December 19, 2025

One odd note on timing

You might see a line floating around saying the movie is already in theaters in the U.S. That does not match the listed release date above. File that under mixed messaging; the official date on this one is December 19, 2025, and early scores can and will shift once wider reviews land.

Bottom line: the kiss is meant to be painfully cute, not provocative, and the production went out of its way to keep the execution above board. Do you prefer Spider and Kiri as complicated almost-lovers, or would you rather they stayed in the family-zone?