Disney and Cameron Sued Over Alleged Misuse of Actor’s Likeness in Avatar Films

Disney and director James Cameron have been sued in a California federal court by an actor who alleges that her likeness was misused as the basis for the character Neytiri in the blockbuster Avatar films.

Q’Orianka Kilcher said in a complaint that Cameron “extracted, replicated, and commercially deployed her facial likeness” for Neytiri’s design, accusing both him and Disney of violating her publicity rights.

Spokespeople for Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit on Wednesday.

“What Cameron did was not inspiration, it was extraction,” Kilcher’s attorney, Arnold Peter of Peter Law Group, said in a statement. “He took the unique biometric facial features of a 14-year-old Indigenous girl, ran them through an industrial production process, and generated billions of dollars in profit without ever once asking her permission.”

Kilcher made her acting debut at the age of 14 as Pocahontas in Terrence Malick’s 2005 film The New World. Her other roles include a recurring part in the television series Yellowstone.

The first Avatar film, released in 2009, became the highest-grossing film of all time, earning nearly $3 billion. The third instalment in the franchise, Avatar: Fire and Ash, has grossed more than $1 billion since its release late last year.

The Avatar series is centred on a group of humanoid aliens known as the Na’vi, who, according to the complaint, are based on Indigenous cultures. The Na’vi protagonist, Neytiri, is played in the films by Zoe Saldana.

Kilcher alleges in her complaint that Cameron used a photograph of her without permission as source material for Neytiri’s digitally rendered facial features. The lawsuit also claims Cameron has acknowledged using an image of Kilcher, who is of Indigenous Peruvian descent, from The New World as a foundation for the character’s design.

“The result was a hugely lucrative film franchise that presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles, all while silently exploiting a real Indigenous youth behind the scenes,” the complaint stated.

Kilcher is seeking unspecified monetary damages for alleged violations of California’s right of publicity law, which prohibits the commercial use of a person’s likeness without consent.

The case is Kilcher v. Cameron, filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, No. 2:26-cv-04832.

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