Academy Award-winning film director James Cameron opened up about what led him and his family to move to New Zealand permanently.
The Titanic director said he had promised his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, that they would move to New Zealand at some point in his career during an appearance on In Depth with Graham Besinger.
Cameron, 71, said he “just really fell in love” with New Zealand when he first visited the country in 1994.
“When Suzy and I were first getting serious, she said, ‘Fine, no problem.’ She was game,” Cameron said of the move. “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 after Avatar, let’s make this happen.”
The couple shares three daughters: Claire, 23, Quinn, 21, and Elizabeth, 18. Cameron also shares another daughter, Josephine, 31, with his ex-wife, actor Linda Hamilton.
The Canadian filmmaker explained that the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020 and led to travel restrictions and lockdowns, said New Zealand’s handling of the virus compared to the United States’ response gave him the push he needed.
“New Zealand had eliminated the virus completely. 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 per cent vaccination rate,” Cameron said.
“This is why I love New Zealand,” he continued. “People there are, for the most part, sane as opposed to the United States, where you had a 62 per cent vaccination rate, and that’s going down — going the wrong direction.”
Cameron, who officially became a New Zealand citizen in August, asked Besinger where he would rather live.
He asked: “A place that 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?”
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Besinger said that the United States is a “fantastic place to live” but did note that New Zealand is “stunningly beautiful.”
“I’m not there for scenery, I’m there for the sanity,” Cameron clarified.
Last February, the Terminator director said his New Zealand citizenship was “imminent” and hinted at plans to relocate to the country to escape U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.
Cameron, a Canadian born in Kapuskasing, Ont., told New Zealand news outlet Stuff that he intended to make his farm in South Wairarapa his family’s primary residence. The film director has owned the 1,000-hectare dairy farm since 2012.
Cameron has long been vocal about his plans and said that Trump’s current presidency, which he described as “horrifying” and “like watching a car crash over and over again,” acted as a recent catalyst.
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“I see it as a turn away from everything decent,” he said of the Trump administration. “America doesn’t stand for anything if it doesn’t stand for what it has historically stood for. It becomes a hollow idea, and I think they’re hollowing it out as fast as they can for their own benefit.”
While Cameron says he doesn’t necessarily feel any safer in New Zealand than in the U.S., he prefers the country’s reporting style, saying it provides a welcome escape from America’s Trump-heavy news cycle.
“There’s something nice about the New Zealand outlets — at least they’ll put it [Trump stories] on page three. … I just don’t want to see that guy’s face any more, on the front page of the paper,” he explained.
Cameron isn’t the first celebrity to move abroad since Trump took office again.
Ellen DeGeneres confirmed that Trump was the reason she left the United States and moved to the U.K. (She and her wife, Portia de Rossi, are rumoured to be moving back to the U.S., however, after the pair purchased a home this month in California.)
Last March, comedian and actor Rosie O’Donnell revealed that she’s no longer living in the United States and confirmed she moved to Ireland.
“Moved here on January 15 and it’s been pretty wonderful, I have to say. The people are so loving and so kind, so welcoming. And I’m very grateful,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell, 63, said she’s currently in the process of getting her Irish citizenship and that she has Irish grandparents.
“I miss my other kids. I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home and I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country and when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back,” she said.
— With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman
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