James Cameron says he had talked about moving to New Zealand for years before finally following through in 2020.
On Wednesday’s episode of “In Depth with Graham Bensinger,” the filmmaker said he first fell in love with the country in the ’90s, but the US response to the pandemic ultimately pushed him to make the move.
“I went to New Zealand for the first time in ’94. I was on my way to the South Pole, and we wound up getting stuck there because the flights were grounded because of ice conditions,” Cameron, 71, told podcast host Graham Bensinger.
The flight delay gave him time to explore the Christchurch area, and he ended up falling in love “with the country, the scenery, the people, the kind of way of life there,” he said.
“I made myself a promise. I’m going to come live here someday,” he said.
Cameron added that when he and his now-wife, Susie, were first getting serious, she was also open to the idea of eventually moving to New Zealand. However, life got in the way as they went on to have kids and settled down in Malibu and Santa Barbara.
“That conversation, you know, had to be amended slightly, but we did say, you know, after ‘Avatar,’ let’s make this happen,” Cameron said.
The couple bought a farm in New Zealand in 2011 and spent years traveling back and forth between the two countries.
“We were shooting in New Zealand. We came back for Christmas, then COVID-19 hit, and we didn’t get back down there,” Cameron said. “So then I had to move mountains to get our production unit back up and running in New Zealand, and we just decided at that point in time that it was time to make the move as a family.“
By the time they had all relocated to New Zealand, the country had largely brought the virus under control, thanks to its high vaccination rates, he said.
“This is why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane as opposed to the United States,” he said, pointing to what he described as stark differences in attitudes toward vaccines and public health.
“Are you kidding me? Where would you rather live?” Cameron said. “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 said New Zealand had beautiful natural landscapes, Cameron replied, “I’m not there for the scenery. I’m there for the sanity.”
In February, the filmmaker told New Zealand outlet Stuff that the US under Donald Trump was “a turn away from everything decent.”
“There’s something nice about the New Zealand outlets — at least they’ll put it on page three. I just don’t want to see that guy’s face anymore on the front page of the paper. It’s inescapable there, it’s like watching a car crash over and over and over,” he said.
Cameron was granted New Zealand citizenship in August, a spokesperson for the filmmaker told The New Zealand Herald.
He isn’t the only Hollywood celebrity who has left the US for political reasons.
Rosie O’Donnell said in a TikTok video in March that she moved from the US to Ireland with her youngest daughter just days before Trump’s inauguration.
“I miss many things about life there at home, and I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country,” she said. “And when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there, in America, that’s when we will consider coming back.”
During a July public appearance at a theater in the UK, Ellen DeGeneres said she and Portia de Rossi moved to England following the 2024 election results.
“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here,'” she said, per the BBC.
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