Virtuoso director James Cameron left the U.S. to live in New Zealand because the people there are “sane,” and he has felt little compulsion to come back under President Donald Trump.
The Avatar mastermind spoke on In Depth with Graham Bensinger on Wednesday, where he discussed his motivation, having first fallen in love with the antipodean country on his way to Antarctica in the ’90s.
The 71-year-old moved his family during COVID, praising New Zealand’s starkly different approach to the pandemic compared to the U.S., where he had been living before.
“They actually eliminated the virus twice,” the Titanic director said. “The third time, when it showed up in a mutated form, it broke through, but fortunately, they already had a 98 percent vaccination rate.
“This is why I love New Zealand, people are for the most part sane, as opposed to the United States, where you had a 62 percent vaccination rate,” he added, a slight inflection in his voice. “And that’s going down, going the wrong direction.”
“Are you kidding me? Where would you rather live?” the Canadian director went on, gathering pace. “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?”
Bensinger replied, saying that the “United States is a fantastic place to live—”
“Is it?” Cameron cut in.
“—but New Zealand is just stunningly beautiful.”
“I’m not there for the scenery, I’m there for the sanity,” Cameron replied, placing heavy emphasis on “sanity.”
Bensinger moved swiftly on.
Cameron joins a sizeable list of high-profile Hollywood figures who have left the country in recent years. Among them is House of Cards and The Girlfriend star Robin Wright, who moved to the Chiltern hills in the U.K., and Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, who live in the nearby Cotswolds.
In December, Cameron slammed Trump for his disregard for the environment during an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
He called him the “most narcissistic a--hole in history since f---ing Nero,” before adding, “Yeah, you can quote that.”
“I’m frustrated because the human race seems to be delusional about what they think is going to happen next. We are going backwards.”
Trump and his administration have done their best to do away with environmental safeguards. Leaked emails revealed earlier this month that the EPA is ditching a policy that counts the monetary benefits of public health when evaluating new regulations on polluting businesses.
