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Sitting in front of James Cameron feels surreal, but he’s as cool and easygoing as can be. It felt odd to refer to the movie-making giant as “James” during the global press junket that took place in London, England earlier this month, so I told him I’d call him, “Mr. Cameron,” to which he responded, “No, please. Call me Jim.”
The director exudes a calm confidence that usually only comes from knowing you are the best at what you do. He knows it, his fans know it, and the stars he works with know it, but some critics still needed convincing. Nothing Cameron ever does is average; we should all know that by now. Making two of the highest-grossing and most iconic films of all time—Avatar and Titanic—as well as a slew of other blockbusters like The Terminator, was still not enough for people who have endlessly questioned what took so long for him to makeAvatar: The Way of Water. But quality takes time.
Cameron is on the brink of releasing the Avatar sequel 13 years after the original. The film started production in 2017 but Cameron also shot Avatar 3 and some of Avatar 4 during the process. The time span between the two films might seem hefty to most impatient fans but the reality is that the waiting period will make sense once the public sees the results on the big screen when the film hits theaters on Friday, Dec. 16.
Not only is Cameron bringing back the original cast including Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, and Sigourney Weaver, but he’s also reuniting with Kate Winslet, and introducing a slew of new talent including Bailey Bass, Jack Champion, Trinity Bliss, and Jamie Flatters. This time around, Neytiri (Saldaña) and Jake Sully (Worthington) are facing the new challenges that come with being parents to four kids in the face of adversity and having to decide between saving their planet or saving their family. He says that idea is similar to his personal experience as a father.
“As a director, I’m always gone in different places around the world, I don’t get enough time with my kids, and so I’m just processing my issues,” Cameron tells Complex. “Which is good; I think artists should do that. They should write, paint, whatever it is, from what they know.”
Every new project Cameron is involved with has to top the previous one, and The Way of Water does exactly that. Complex sat down with the director for a brief chat ahead of the film’s release and he talked about using his experience as a father as inspiration for the story, how his admiration for the ocean inspired the film and how the ideas behind the Avatar world were born from his dreams.
I watched the movie last night and it’s absolutely stunning, so congratulations.
Good. Well, thank you for that feedback. We’re all a little bit nervous before we show the film for the first time. Kind of pull the canvas off the new baby.
I know there have been conversations about the timing and how long it took, but I think those questions will dissipate as soon as people see it.
It’s real-time. We had to do teenage stories, so yeah, we’ll just do it in real-time. [Laughs.]
Do you hope that this helps people give filmmakers a little bit more time and have patience for fans to give them time to create?
Maybe. A lot of big movies are really rushed through post and it really speeds up the visual effects process, which is quite intricate, you know, and so on.
We were still working pretty fast and it was long days. It’s because we were making two movies at the same time, so we’re making movie two and movie three at the same time, and even a bit of movie four. So it was like every day was like that, doing both movies at the same time. And it kind of drove the cast a little crazy, too. It’s like, “OK, yesterday we were working on movie three. Today we’re back on two. Where are we?”
It’s hard to keep track of, I’m sure. The family and the kids are really the heart of this story.
Absolutely, yeah.
Can you talk about your decision to give Jake and Neytiri this new vulnerable side to explore this time around?
Well, it’s something—I shouldn’t say I’ve never written it because I did True Lies, which was a bit of a family story about somebody who’s quite extraordinary, kind of a James Bond character, that has to come home to his family, and how do you balance the work/life balance, right? So it was the same idea. So I’m just processing my own stuff. As a director I’m always gone in different places around the world, I don’t get enough time with my kids, and so I’m just processing my issues. Which is good; I think artists should do that. They should write, paint, whatever it is, from what they know.
But also wanting to connect such a fantastic story and a fantastic world to something very rooted in human experience. And a universal human experience; not just sort of North American pop culture, but all culture everywhere around the world. And whether it’s a highly urban, living in a high rise or living in a suburban neighborhood, or living in the Amazon rainforest, people all value the same thing, which is their family. And Jake and Neytiri have to balance their desire to protect their family against their need to protect their world. And Jake has to figure out where he is in all that.
Your love for the ocean and for water has been so evident in a lot of the movies that you’ve made, especially this one. And I see little Titanic odes here in some scenes.
Well, I like shipwrecks. [Laughs.]
Can you talk a little bit about that, and wanting to explore this new world in The Way of Water?
Yeah, look, so I’ve done so much underwater photography; shooting in water, The Abyss, and obviously Titanic, and then all the documentaries, all the deep ocean exploration work that I’ve done. So I wanted to bring that back in and see if we could solve that in the virtual production. Because I know that with the virtual production, what can you do? You can make amazing new underwater creatures, and create these incredible landscapes. So I work from my dreams a lot.
Oh, I heard.
I have a lot of underwater dreams, a lot of underwater dreams. And in them sometimes I’m just seeing such amazing biomass, such amazing life. And it’s what it used to be here on Earth until we went out with our vast fishing fleets and took out 90 percent of the fish. But it used to be like that here, and it could be like that again. Of course, nature can rebound if we give her a chance. And of course, that’s our guardianship role that we have to embrace and accept.
So maybe this movie between the lines is saying, “Hey, we love the ocean so much, we love being underwater. It speaks to us subconsciously almost, in this kind of dreamlike way. Let’s protect it.”