Canadian-born filmmaker James Cameron says he chose to make New Zealand his home because of what he calls the country's "sane" approach to science.
Appearing on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Cameron pushed back on the idea that he was drawn mainly by New Zealand's scenery.
"I'm not there for the scenery, I'm there for the sanity," he said.
Cameron, the director of Titanic and the Avatar franchise, first visited Christchurch in 1994. He moved to New Zealand permanently in 2020 and told the show he'd long planned to live here.
He said he told his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, early in their relationship that he intended to relocate after "falling in love with the country, the scenery, the people, the kind of the way of life there".
Reflecting on filming during Covid-19, Cameron praised the Government's elimination strategy, which saw the country enter strict lockdowns.
"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."
He said he valued living in a place where people trusted science, drawing a comparison with the United States' political divisions and lower vaccination uptake.
"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 polarised, turning its back on science and basically would be in utter disarray if another pandemic appears?"
Cameron became a New Zealand citizen in August last year, taking part in a ceremony in Wellington.
He previously said all his future films would be made in New Zealand — a pledge he has continued to honour through production of the ongoing Avatar series.
SHARE ME