Stephen Lang is having a fascinating year. While the actor’s filmography has more range than a 10-octave singer (from early work such as the Hannibal Lecter film Manhunter through classics like Tombstone and modern thrillers like Don’t Breathe), 2022 may contain the widest range in Lang’s whole career.

Between the theatrical rerelease of the biggest blockbuster of all time, Avatar, and its highly-anticipated sequel The Way of Water, Lang can also be seen headlining the small psychological thriller Old Man. In Avatar (and apparently its sequel), his massive musculature nearly obscures his powerfully bitter, acidic performance, playing one of the most ideologically evil characters in recent memory. In Old Man, Lang plays the frail, titular madman, rambling to himself in his dirty long johns, both dangerous and pathetic. Watching both performances within the same year they are released displays a veritable masterclass in acting.

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Doing press for his tour de force performance in Old Man while the rerelease of Avatar is in theaters inevitably led to Lang reflecting on the success of Avatar and the very little that he can say about James Cameron’s epic sequels.

Lang Shares How He Re-Watched Avatar 12 Years Later

     RLJE Films

“The legacy of Avatar is sort of not something for me to talk about,” said Lang, “and it’s a long road ahead. What is incredibly gratifying is to see the real embrace that the world has put out for the rerelease, which tells us that people are still ready for Avatar.” He’s not wrong — it’s fairly unprecedented for a 13-year-old film to earn $30 million in one weekend, with fans making the Avatar rerelease number one at the box office.

While Lang is too humble to talk about the legacy of Avatar (especially as multiple sequels approach), he did share a touching story about re-watching the film for the first time in a dozen years:

Stephen Lang is Back as Quaritch in Avatar 2

     20th Century Studios

It surprised many Avatar fans to discover that Lang is in the sequel, but that’s been confirmed with images by now. “The Way of Water is a beautiful, beautiful film,” insisted Lang, who will return as the vicious military man Quaritch but in the form of a Na’avi avatar. “He’s bigger, he’s bluer, he’s pissed off,” Lang told Empire. “But there may possibly be an aspect of humility. When you take two Na’vi arrows in the chest, that’s gonna have some kind of effect on you," he hinted.

On a personal note, when I went to see it (and I hadn’t seen it since it came out, in 11 or 12 years), I watched it with my grandson on one side of me and a granddaughter on the other side of me, neither of whom were born when Avatar came out. So, it was intensely thrilling for me to see how enthralled they were in this world. I mean, watching them was every bit as fascinating to watch. So the legacy of the film is kind of right there, for me, and hopefully it’ll continually be rediscovered by generations of filmgoers as the sequels come out.

Any Avatar or Stephen Lang fans would be doing themselves a favor by checking out his performance in Lucky McKee’s new film Old Man; it’s a masterful study in paranoia, regret, and aging, and a lightyear away from his character in the Avatar movies. Better yet, watching both films in the same year reveals the range of one truly phenomenal actor.

Old Man is a production of XYZ Films, Paper Street Pictures, and AMP International. It will have a VOD and limited theatrical release on October 14th from RLJE films. Avatar: The Way of Water will be released on Dec. 16th from 20th Century Studios.