Winslet’s titanic dive for Avatar
YOU would forgive Kate Winslet for refusing to ever get into a water tank again for director James Cameron. The star spent months shooting scenes for him in Titanic — and ended up with hypothermia for her pains.
However not a bit of it. The Oscarwinning actress positively thrived when shooting underwater scenes for Cameron’s Avatar sequel The Way Of Water.
She plays Ronal, one of a race of underwater beings closely related to the Na’vi.
Producer Jon Landau was in London yesterday to screen some footage and (very gently) start to beat the drums to promote his new sci-fi blockbuster. He told me: ‘Kate broke a free-diving record among the cast. It was six minutes 50-something — but for Kate we agreed to call it seven. She was phenomenal.’ Winslet was apparently particularly delighted to beat Tom Cruise, who famously performs his own stunts and managed a six-minute free dive while making Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation in 2015.
Young actress Bailey Bass plays Tsireya, Ronal’s daughter, in The Way Of Water. She said: ‘Kate holds the record — she set it during training. I managed six minutes and 30 seconds.’ All the cast went through dive training to prepare for the picture, which opens here on December 16.