James Cameron shared his family's reasoning behind moving to New Zealand permanently in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
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The Avatar director said he "just really fell in love with" the country and its people when he first visited New Zealand in 1994
Cameron has been married to actress Suzy Amis Cameron since 2000; they share three children
James Cameronhas long admired New Zealand, but the COVID-19 pandemic led him and wifeSuzy Amis Cameronto make a permanent move to the country.
Avatar: Fire and Ashdirector Cameron, 71, shared that New Zealand's approach to dealing with the pandemic that erupted around the world in 2020 made him want to live in the country, when he appeared on the latest episode ofIn Depth with Graham Besinger.
Cameron said during the interview that he first visited New Zealand in 1994. "I made myself a promise. 'I'm going to come live here someday,' " he recalled thinking, after he "just really fell in love with" the country and its people.
"When Suzy and I were first getting serious, she said, 'Fine, no problem.' She was game," he added of his wife Suzy, 64, whom he married in 2000 and shares three children with. "Now, later, we have children, we have a family, we've got roots in Malibu and Santa Barbara, that conversation had to be amended slightly, but we did say afterAvatar,let's make this happen."
Cameron purchased a farm in the country in 2011 and said he spent significant time "going back and forth" in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, while he was still working on 2022'sAvatar: The Way of Water.They decided to "make the move as a family" in August of that year.
"New Zealand had eliminated the virus completely," Cameron said. "They actually eliminated the virus twice. The third time when it showed up in a mutated form, it broke through. But fortunately, they already had a 98% vaccination rate. This is why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane as opposed to the United States where you had a 62% vaccination rate, and that's going down – going the wrong direction."
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TheTitanicdirector proposed a hypothetical question. "Where would you rather live? A place that actually believes in science and is sane and where people can work together cohesively to a common goal, or a place where everybody's at each other's throats, extremely polarized, turning its back on science and basically would be in utter disarray if another pandemic appears."
When Bensinger described the U.S. as "a fantastic place to live" during the conversation, Cameron interjected, "Is it?"
"I'm not there for scenery, I'm there for the sanity," the filmmaker added, when Bensinger noted New Zealand's beautiful natural landscapes.
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Cameron, who was married four times before tying the knot with Suzy, also shares an adult daughter, Josephine, from hispast marriage toTerminatorstar Linda Hamilton. Suzy also has a son named Jasper from a previous marriage to actor Sam Robards.
Cameron's full interview onIn Depth with Graham Besingerairs in syndication across the U.S. this weekend.
Avatar: Fire and Ashis in theaters now.
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