Q’orianka Kilcher, a Native Peruvian actor known for her role as Pocahontas in Terrence Malick’s 2005 film The New World, has filed a lawsuit against James Cameron and the Walt Disney Company. The suit alleges that Cameron based the character Neytiri in the Avatar franchise on Kilcher's facial features without her permission. According to the lawsuit, Cameron directed his design team to extract Kilcher's likeness after seeing her in an LA Times advertisement. Kilcher's complaint emphasizes that the Avatar series, which grossed billions, presents itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles while exploiting real Indigenous identities behind the scenes. The lawsuit also mentions a meeting between Kilcher and Cameron in 2010, where he gifted her a sketch of Neytiri, stating that her beauty inspired the character. Kilcher expressed her shock at discovering that her likeness had been used without consent, calling it a violation of trust. Her legal counsel argues that Cameron's actions constitute theft rather than artistic inspiration, as they profited from her identity without compensation.