Avatar director James Cameron reveals that Jake Sully is partially based on himself. Released in 2009, the sci-fi fantasy film remains not just Cameron's most successful film ever, but the highest-grossing movie of all time. Avatar stars Sam Worthington in the lead role of Jake, a paraplegic marine dispatched on a mission to colonize the alien moon of Pandora who becomes torn between following orders and defending the people and culture he comes to love. Worthington returns as Jake to lead the cast of Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Cameron's hit sequel.

During a recent interview with Empire magazine, Cameron recalls the writing process for the Avatar sequels. The director reveals that the franchise's characters were created and written by drawing from his own life, as well as the lives of his co-writers, Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno. Cameron mentions Jake, specifically, as a character that has...