Japan Interview: Sweet but strong � Jackson Talks About His Next Tattoo

��Suaviter fortiter.� That�s gonna be my next tattoo.� Actor Jackson Rathbone made this declaration last week while he and actress Nicola Peltz were in Tokyo to promote The Last Airbender, a new fantasy adventure movie.

The film was directed by M. Night Shyamalan and is based on a popular American animated TV series called Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Rathbone, 25, and Peltz, 15, play a brother and sister named Sokka and Katara who are members of a polar ethnic group called the Southern Water Tribe. Their parents have been abducted by marauders from the imperialistic Fire Nation, leaving Sokka, a young warrior, responsible for the care of his little sister, Katara.


Rathbone explained that �Suaviter Fortiter� is the Latin motto on his family crest, and that it means �sweetly yet bravely� or �nice and strong.� It�s a phrase that could describe Sokka�s responsibilities as a fighter and a surrogate parent.

�It�s the idea of being strong in who you are and your beliefs and what you think, but also being respectful as much as you can be without breaking. Literally, �Rathbone� is a stick, a reed, that bends without breaking,� Rathbone said in a joint interview he and Peltz gave The Daily Yomiuri.

The actor, whose full name is Monroe Jackson Rathbone V, comes from a family that can boast of more than just a Latin motto. His ancestors include Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general in the American Civil War, and Monroe Jackson Rathbone II, who was a chairman of Standard Oil. �I�m actually even very thinly related to the incredible English actor Basil Rathbone,� he said.

Similarly, Peltz is the daughter of food industry billionaire Nelson Peltz, the chief executive officer of Wendy�s/Arby�s Group, Inc. �My dad always taught me to work hard and always give 110 percent in everything I do,� she said. �I definitely keep learning and learned a lot from my dad.�

In The Last Airbender, however, Rathbone and Peltz play characters whose only family is each other (plus a very briefly seen grandmother) until they find the title character�who has the psychic power to �bend� air, controlling the wind�trapped in a state of suspended animation in a giant bubble of ice.

�Sokka and Katara stumble across him and we take him in, make him part of our family and then we kind of go on this quest to really right what�s wrong in the world,� Rathbone said.

In the United States, some fans of the anime-style cartoon have protested against the casting Rathbone and Peltz, who are white, in roles the fans saw as Asian.

Asked to comment on that, Rathbone said: �I originally was a finalist for Prince Zuko [a Fire Nation role that went to Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel]. Almost a year later, I was brought back in for the character of Sokka�I think what they were really looking for was the qualities that people represent, not so much focusing on race�All these characters [in the cartoon] have so many different features, you can�t really say that they are one race�It�s a shame that people really focus on the race thing and they don�t understand that it�s a story for everyone.�

�And there are over 120 different types of people in the film,� Peltz added.

�In terms of a big-budget film, it�s most ethnically diverse cast there�s ever been,� Rathbone agreed.

Some of that big budget went toward two weeks of filming in Greenland, while scenes of the Northern Water Tribe�s ice palaces were shot in Pennsylvania in what Rathbone called �the biggest sets built in sound stages on the East Coast. It was incredible. The sets were ridiculously gorgeous�There�s actually rivers and ponds. There is like a flowing river throughout the set.�

�And there�s waterfalls,� Peltz said. �It�s unbelievable. I was like, �Can I live here?� It was awesome.�

Source via jackson-rathbone