“I came back in ‘Resident Evil,’ I wasn’t supposed to. I came back in ‘Machete,’ I wasn’t supposed to. I came back with ‘Letty,’ I wasn’t supposed to. We can’t do a fourth [time], that would be overkill!”- Rodriguez said.
Michelle Rodriguez, best known for her roles in the “Fast & Furious” series, has recently made an unexpected revelation. The actress turned down the opportunity to reprise her role in one of the most successful movie franchises of all time, “Avatar.” She explained to Vanity Fair that she believes it would be “overkill” for her character to be brought back from the dead, an occurrence that has already transpired three times in her career.
Rodriguez made her “Avatar” debut in the original 2009 blockbuster by James Cameron, where she played Trudy Chacón, a combat pilot who aligns with the Na’vi against the villainous humans trying to take over Pandora. Despite Trudy’s heroic sacrifice in the first movie, Cameron expressed his intention to potentially resurrect her character in future sequels.
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However, Rodriguez was not onboard with the idea. She recounted a recent conversation with Cameron, stating, “‘Dude, when I saw Jim recently, he was like, ‘I was thinking, “What if Michelle came back? A lot of the other characters came back [in ‘The Way of Water’].”‘ I was like, ‘You can’t do that—I died as a martyr.'”
She reminded Cameron of the numerous times her characters have been resurrected, against the odds. “I came back in ‘Resident Evil,’ I wasn’t supposed to. I came back in ‘Machete,’ I wasn’t supposed to. I came back with ‘Letty,’ I wasn’t supposed to. We can’t do a fourth [time], that would be overkill!”
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Rodriguez expressed her bewilderment about this pattern of her characters returning from the dead. “I don’t understand, it’s so weird. I guess they don’t know what to do with the girl who doesn’t have a boyfriend,” she said.
Declining to return in “Avatar” means Rodriguez has turned down an opportunity to be part of an immensely successful franchise. The original “Avatar” movie holds the title of the highest-grossing film worldwide, grossing a total of $2.9 billion. Its sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” released 13 years later, also performed incredibly well at the box office, earning $2.3 billion and ranking as the third highest-grossing movie in history. Despite the tempting prospect of such box-office success, Rodriguez stands by her decision to let her character remain a martyr.
