Oona Chaplin is the actor who played the villain Varan in Avatar: Fire and Ashes. She is also the granddaughter of film icon Charlie Chaplin. Oona, who also has credits on Game of Thrones, recently told the London Times that she is considering changing her name after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and beginning to pursue a full-time acting career.
“This has been a journey that feels well deserved, because I know that doors have opened for me that might not have opened had I not been involved with this wonderful man,” Oona Chaplin said. “It’s definitely difficult to feel like you don’t deserve where you are.”
However, she decided not to change her name. That’s because “working hard and knowing that nothing I do will ever compare to what my grandfather did changed my mindset from guilt to gratitude. If my whole purpose in this area is for people to say, ‘Oh, Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter,’ and for people to Google him and watch his movies, then I’m happy, because he’s such a genius.”
Oona’s mother, Geraldine Chaplin, was Charlie’s daughter and was an actor herself. Although Avatar: Fire and Ashes is Oona’s first Hollywood blockbuster, she has been acting professionally since 2007. Her credits also include “Taboo,” “The Crimson Field” and “Black Mirror.”
The actor told the London Times that he believes Charlie Chaplin “would have been in” Avatar, adding: “I think James Cameron is probably the closest thing we have to Chaplin right now, even though he’s very different from them. People listen because they know what they’re talking about.”
Cameron told IndieWire during the press tour for his latest film, Avatar, that when he was initially casting Varane, he was “meeting with women whose names were immediately recognizable, who were already stars and who I really wanted to work with.”
“It was a difficult decision to turn my back on a face and name I already knew, but Oona surprised me with her awareness of the role, the way she moved and her sheer fearlessness,” he added of Chaplin’s casting. “And she was well prepared. She knew the scene coldly, and it was seven, eight pages.”
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is now showing in theaters nationwide.
