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LIKE JUST ABOUT every movie directed by James Cameron, 2023’s Avatar: The Way of Water is long. Not just regular long, either—we’re talking really, really long. 192 minutes—3 hours and 12 minutes!—of Pandora action. Jack Champion, who played perhaps the most prominent non-blue character in the film, feels ashamed to admit that he’s “only” seen it nine times.
“I know that sounds like, only nine times, but counting all the premieres…” he says with a sly smile. “But the first Avatar—I’ve genuinely seen that movie 30 times. It’s that good.”
That first Avatar film, which released in 2009 when Champion was only five years old, comes in at a relatively svelte 162 minutes. It’s all time well spent though, as the master filmmaker has proved through the years there’s no one better at creating a massive world and dropping his viewers directly into it. Whether it’s Terminator 2, Aliens, or Titanic—we’ll stay for as long as he’ll have us.
Now 21, Champion has spent more than a third of his life working on the Avatar films. But those weren’t his first brush with big-scale blockbusters, as he’d previously booked a role in Avengers: Endgame as “Kid on Bike,” in a short-but-vital scene early in the film with Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man.
As it turns out, Champion’s two biggest roles to date are directly intertwined. On the same day in 2017, he filmed his Endgame role in Atlanta, and later flew to Los Angeles to meet with Cameron for his The Way of Water screen test.
“It really did prepare me to be like, ‘Okay, I met Ant-Man. I met Paul Rudd. They’re amazing, but at the end of the day, everyone’s just a person. They’re my heroes, but I can do this,'” he says. “Paul Rudd was so nice—I talked to him about going to L.A. for the Avatar stuff, and he was very much like, ‘Dude, just enjoy it. Take it slow.'”
In the eight years (and counting) since that fateful screen test, Champion has embodied the role of Avatar‘s Spider—a close friend of the heroic Sully family who happens to be the estranged son of Stephen Lang’s series villain—through thick and thin, filming both The Way of Water and the new third film, Fire & Ash. He’s also shot certain scenes that will be used pre-time jump in a planned fourth film (a necessity given how much some of the younger cast has grown since wrapping production). Cameron has plans for two more Avatars at least, but production on those hasn’t officially started yet.
As Avatar: Fire & Ash hits theaters everywhere and audiences make their grand return to Pandora, Men’s Health sat down with Champion to talk James Cameron’s fatherly energy, channeling Spider’s feral rage, and everything that goes into spending your life in a sci-fi movie.
MEN’S HEALTH: How long did it take you every day to get your Spider wig and costume on?
JACK CHAMPION: Two and a half hours. Honestly, we got it down to a science with the wig, and then they’d spray. They made these molds out of my body at Weta Workshops, so they’d mold my body and then they’d cut out from the mold where the stripes would be. Then they just sprayed me with this blue paint. The hardest part was the detail: “Okay, so he’s been running through the jungle. He could have this cut here, this cut here, a big gash here,” and that stuff would take over an hour, but that was the most important part for continuity.
MH: Do you feel pressure sharing scenes with legends like Sigourney Weaver or Stephen Lang?
JC: Maybe at first. In the very beginning, I was a little intimidated, but so quickly they were so good at being so lovely and accepting. I was a kid. I was 12 years old. Slang, Sam [Worthington], Sigourney, they were all just so nice and so parental, and just nice, lovely people. There was no ego or any like, “I’m a big actor.” They were all just normal people who had families, had kids, and I met them throughout the years. It really quickly became such a nice friendship and working environment.
MH: Your character, Spider, and Sigourney’s character, Kiri, have a very close relationship in the films. Did you do any extra work off-camera to build that?
JC: Monday through Friday for years, we would work together, and while you’re working together, there are just so many moments off camera. Whether it be lunches, whether it just be talking in between scenes, you just get to know someone naturally that way.
MH: Spider has this interesting dynamic of being sort of a son to both Quaritch and Jake Sully (Worthington). How did you see that dynamic?
JC: The Sullys just went through the horrible death of Neteyam, and Spider specifically feels torn. He’s like, “This badass colonel—but evil dude—is my dad,” and obviously he’s evil, but Spider, timeline-wise, had spent weeks with him. He had been like, “Oh, wow, this guy… he has charm to him. He has a sense of humor. He has qualities that aren’t just pure evil,” and he sees that. But then the third act happens, and he’s completely torn. You see how that tornness unravels in the third film pretty spectacularly.
MH: Spider’s often walking around on all fours, hanging from trees—how did you prepare for this role?
JC: Growing up in small-town Virginia, in the mountains, I was often running around barefoot. I grew up climbing trees. Getting muddy and dirty was a part of everyday life. It was fun. That aspect of Spider came so easily to me. The part that really took a lot of preparation was the archery lessons, the knife fighting lessons, even the parkour to an extent—there’s vaulting and this and that. We went to a place called Tempest Parkour Gym twice a week, just to get that down.
For years, I also trained my body to get the right muscle tone, to look like I worked out, and I worked out with my trainer, Josh Murillo, who is like a brother to me. I really want him to get the credit he deserves, because for four and a half years, he and I worked together, and we trained from LA to New Zealand, just preparing my body for the live-action shoot to look like I was lean enough and I didn’t grow up … you know, there’s no processed foods. There’s no junk food on Pandora. It’s all meat, veggies, fruit, and constantly running throughout the jungle, so what would that look like on a young person?
MH: Did James Cameron give any specific notes on that side of things?
JC: No. He pretty much let us do our thing, just besides generally being Tarzan-looking and fit. Then Josh took that, and was like, “Alright, we’re going to do that.” We had two years of preparation for me to get there, and I hope we pulled it off.
MH: How do you think your training will evolve for future Avatar movies?
JC: If and when we do Four and Five, Spider’s going to be older, so there’ll probably be more muscle, more muscle tone, stuff like that. There will probably be even more focus on the weightlifting aspect. Obviously, the main thing about Spider is still mobility. As I’m in the in-between part from filming Two and Three and Four and Five, I’ve really just focused on lightweight bodybuilding stuff to keep a general nice frame that I like.
A lot of it is mobility, calisthenic-type stuff. I do a lot of running. I’ve recently gotten into hot yoga, which is honestly … it sounds so Hollywood, but it’s really good. Anyone should give it a try, young or old. A lot of stretching, because I’m so inflexible—I’m just now getting to a point where I feel comfortable with my flexibility, and that helps in everyday life.
MH: Have you taken anything away from shooting The Way of Water and Fire & Ash back to back?
JC: Just grit, man. So much grit went into filming Avatar. There were so many days that were physically hard, because I’m in my loin cloth. We’re in a cold studio in New Zealand, and whether that be filming in a tank underwater, or filming a scene where I just got out of a river or the ocean, so they have to dump a bucket of water on me… man, I’m cold. There were so many aspects where I’m like, “Mentally, if I can do this, I can do anything.” If I can film for three months straight in a full face mask, scuba, underwater swimming all day, or if I can be wet and cold all day and do a good job, keep a good attitude, if I can do that, everything else will be a piece of cake.
MH: Were you a big fan of James Cameron before all this?
JC: Oh, yeah. I grew up with Aliens. I grew up with Terminator, Terminator 2, The Abyss. I loved all of his movies. Dude’s a legend. I would geek out in between takes sometimes, where it would just be him, and I would just ask him questions. “Tell me this about Aliens lore, tell me this about The Terminator.” I mean, he was right there, so of course I’m going to ask him all the annoying questions.
MH: How would you describe your relationship?
JC: Very father-son-esque, I would say. He really was there for me, in a fatherly figure kind of way. When I was growing up, he provided a lot of guidance from 12 years old to 16 years old, which is a time when I think any young person needs that guidance. My mom was there the whole time. Jim is very kind and very patient.
MH: More of a Jake father than a Quaritch father?
JC: Yeah. Well, he was a good mix.
MH: Are you channeling anything specific when Spider’s feral rage comes out?
JC: I feel like everyone has that primal nature somewhere. Humans, we’re animals, you know? It doesn’t come unnaturally to us. We’re raised in a society of manners and politeness, but we all have that animalistic rage in us. As an actor, I try my best to just unleash that, and especially in the fight scenes.
….Honestly? Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Talk about animal aggression. You know what I mean? That was a great thing that would come to my mind a lot, when he’s slicing people up, and he just screams, and you feel nothing but animalistic ruthlessness. That was a big inspiration as well.
MH: Did the experience ever feel surreal? Like, “OK, Zoe Saldaña is holding me at knifepoint right now.”
JC: I’d be lying if I wasn’t on set sometimes and like, “I’m growing up on one of the biggest movies ever. I’m in this fricking technological advancement volume with this suit on,” and Zoe is … you know, Zoe Saldaña is one of the greatest actresses ever. I’m like, “Whoa.” There is that level of shock.
MH: Do you have a good way to snap yourself out of it when that happens?
JC: Oh, yeah. I mean, as soon as Jim says action.
MH: You’re right back in it?
JC: You can’t help but be in it. Even if I was head in the clouds, you get the focus from Sig, Zoe, Sam, Slang, the focus from them, and the fact that they just, boom, they become in the world, in the character. You’re not in LA anymore, you’re on Pandora, and you’re like, “Oh, okay. Whoa, shit just got real.” They just create this dome of creative teleportation.
MH: You also appeared in Freaky Tales earlier in 2025, which was a super cool movie. Are you into that type of pulp, genre, vignette style of storytelling?
JC: Oh, man, yeah. I love that. It felt like you were watching a comic book. I love that kind of artsy, weird, ultra-violent, fun movie. Freaky Tales was one of my first indie projects, but I got to work with Pedro [Pascal]. I got to work with Ben Mendelsohn, who, by the way, is the nicest dude on the earth, and so is Pedro. It was just such a fun, creative experience, and I had a lot of creative room to do whatever.
MH: I mean, talk about James Cameron and Aliens, that’s very much the same ’80s vibe.
JC: I love the ’80s. My parents are from the ’80s—I grew up loving and hearing about that decade.
MH: You worked with Dave Bautista in Trap House and Liam Neeson in Retribution. Did you pick up any action star tips from those two guys?
JC: They’re just really chill people. All of them have amazing stillness—if you ever go and watch another one of their movies, they keep eye contact, and they have this stillness while they are acting that, for lack of a better word, has aura to it. It’s so 2025, but it has this. Versus me being like, “Hey, man, give me your money,” it’s like [in a serious voice and with an intense facial expression], “Give me your money.” There’s just a stillness—like the world just stopped and the only person existing is you and them.
MH: Who do you want to work with?
JC: I mean, the Coen brothers, 100 percent. David Fincher. Love all of his stuff. Man, there’s so many good ones. As far as actors, I love Christian Bale. I’d love to work with Pedro again. I don’t know. That’s such a big question.
MH: We’ve got to get the Coen brothers back together.
JC: Yes, 100 percent.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
