Jamie Flatters was only 16 when his life changed: James Cameron called to offer him the role of Neteyam, eldest son of Jake and Neytiri in the Avatar sequels.
“There will never again be a moment like that,” Flatters, now 21, recalls. “I watched Avatar when I was nine, and I loved it so much I went to the cinema twice in one week.”
Principal performance capture for Avatar: The Way Of Water and its immediate sequel shot for 130 days during 2017 and 2018 in Los Angeles. Flatters says he enjoyed the experience of Cameron’s bespoke motion-capture technology.
“It was extremely fun, it was like doing theatre all day but there are up to 25 cameras around you.” Acting in a green-screen fantasy world was not off-putting. “As long as the other actor is committed, you’re instantly there. You just need one moment of eye contact,” he says, paying tribute to co-stars Britain Dalton (who plays Neteyam’s younger brother), Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver.
South London-born Flatters remembers always wanting to act: “There’s a playfulness in all kids and I liked that as a child, feeding into fantasy.” He did theatre first and then TV projects such as CBBC’s So Awkward, ITV’s Liar, Channel 4’s Close To Me and Dutch Second World War film The Forgotten Battle on Netflix. He has also shot Paul Feig’s The School For Good And Evil, based on the popular series of Soman Chainani books, playing a prince called Tedros. “I thought I was being hilarious but it could come across he was the butt of the jokes,” Flatters says with a laugh.
This summer he is shooting the dark drama Black Dog, based on a script he co-wrote with director and fellow 2022 Star of Tomorrow George Jaques, about “two guys who go on a road trip to Scotland to escape their troubles in London, and along the way their demons are revealed”.
Flatters already has another feature screenplay in the bag, plus a TV series he has co-written. “I would love to follow Tilda Swinton’s career path, collaborating with a lot of new writer/directors, he adds. “And I would love to be involved early when scripts are still in development.”
Contact: Sarah Spear & Grace Clissold, Curtis Brown
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