Varang star Oona Chaplin "studied" Zoe Saldaña's Neytiri to craft her Avatar: Fire and Ash villain, but "Varang has suffered immense trauma, and so she doesn't trust the world like Neytiri does"

Pandora has a new threat in town. While The Way of Water introduced us to the ocean-loving Metkayina, Avatar: Fire and Ash brings us the Mangkwan, a fire-obsessed, war-hungry Na'vi clan.

These Ash People were decimated by a volcanic eruption that destroyed their home, which led to them turning their back on the goddess Eywa, in contrast to the more peaceful Na'vi that Sam Worthington's Jake Sully and Zoe Saldaña's Neytiri have found a home with.

The Mangkwan also have a formidable leader: Oona Chaplin's Varang. Everything about Varang is striking, from her headdress to her shadowy eye makeup to the sinuous way she moves.

"Well, I studied Zoe for the moves, because Zoe is Pandora for me," Chaplin tells us when we meet with her in London. "I would go into the rehearsal room and kind of try and imitate the way that she moved, and then I'd think, because Zoe moves from the heart a lot, it's like, 'Okay, what happens when you close your heart?' Because I know Varang has suffered immense trauma, and so she doesn't trust the world like Neytiri does."

Along with studying Saldaña, Chaplin's costume also contributed to Varang's physicality, with Varang's tight clothing on her top half "almost like a bondage rope around the chest," Chaplin explains. "And then boom, her center of gravity just dropped."

Varang's dual weapons were a factor, too. "And then the buugeng as well were really good help for the movement, because you have to have such precision to get flow, and to turn these solid, dead, inanimate objects into almost like snakes," Chaplin says.

But, while Chaplin might have drawn inspiration from Saldaña behind the scenes, on-screen, it's a very different story. A fierce rivalry emerges between Varang and Neytiri, and the duo clash multiple times.

"Zoe's an incredible sister to women," Chaplin tells us of finding their dynamic. "She is an incredible supporter and advocate for women, and men, but women generally. She's a really good sister, which was such a relief, because you never know what you're gonna get. But she was so encouraging and so uplifting and so generous with me, and so instantly we found a trust, and we also both speak Spanish as a first language. So, we found this place of trust and familiarity that allowed for there to be a lot of intimacy right away.

"And to be adversaries, you need to – it's very intimate to fight with somebody, you know, you get in there. And so, it was cool. And then, we both have a dancing background, so the fight scenes were – in that way, we were kind of dancing together," Chaplin adds. "It was really fun. But the trust, and the trust that was built within the whole cast, actually, is one of the defining features of this working experience for me."

You can see Varang in action when Avatar: Fire and Ash arrives in theaters this December 19. In the meantime, check out our guide to the biggest movie release dates of this year and beyond, or catch up on the previous film with the lowdown on the Avatar: The Way of Water ending explained.