The Darker Side of James Cameron

With James Cameron's Avatar The Way of Water looking like another box office hit, we wanted to take a look at a darker side of the director not many people know of. The tea cart flipping, no bathroom breaks, pushing actors to the extreme side of him that is known all around the industry. James Cameron often is under pressure with pushing film and technology farther than any other director, but this pressure fuels his temper.

In this video we'll be going over his past productions that have been notorious for his behaviour. Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies and the Titanic are all full of production stories detailing James Cameron's antics on set. Although he's since mellowed out, and lives up to his arrogant reputation, we wanted to take a chronological deep dive on some of these stories.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:16 - Aliens Hate Tea
04:15 - Drowning in an Abyss of Piss
07:46 - Bathroomless Titanic
10:55 - Reconciliation?

James Cameron. The Terminator. Aliens. The Abyss. Terminator 2: Judgment Day. True Lies. Titanic. Avatar. Avatar The Way of Water. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sam Worthington. Ed Harris. Kathryn Bigelow. Piranha 2: The Spawning. Alien. Ridley Scott. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Kate Winslet. Leonardo DiCaprio.

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#jamescameron #aliens #titanic

[DannySuls]

I love the line "You can't scare me, I work for James Cameron." 🤣

[thefearofgds]

It's weird to think that he's still managed to develope friendships with his cast and crew despite of all his onset antics. Him and Arnold got into a lot of arguments in their movies together and not only did he return for more of Cameron's films, they're still friends to this day lol. Same with Sigourney Weaver.

[shabbysnubtide]

The cast of The Abyss took to referring to the movie as “The Abuse”.

[forrest.]

I met somebody who worked closely with him on two of his films. There wasn't a single person on set who didn't hate Cameron, in fact one thing which brought everybody together was their contempt for him

[tronam]

I do find it interesting that actors like Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet and others keep returning to play in James Cameron's sandbox, despite his demanding reputation. These are all mensches that everyone seems to like working with and don't have a history of on-set drama. Maybe they enjoy the challenge and appreciate his 110% attitude toward everything? It's hard to say. Perfectionists do to tend to appreciate and empathize with other perfectionists. One thing you can't say about Cameron though is that he doesn't give it his all. He's always been a very in-the-trenches kind of director and if you see any behind the scenes footage of Titanic, he is right there in the middle of it with all the actors directing his ass off, willing to be up to his neck in water alongside them. It's hard not to respect that.

[ingvarhallstrom]

Ron Howard was an actor for twenty years before he began making films, I'd bet he treats his cast and crew they way he wanted directors to treat him as an actor.

[oldbittercraig]

You talked about The Abyss but somehow without bringing up the crew's alt-name for the project, The Abuse.

[TheBermudaMan]

Guys...just imagine if Klaus Kinski was ever cast in a James Cameron movie. Talk about an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object.

[Rallosz]

I don't think the way he behaved was necessary at all. But, you can't deny his results. Very informative and well edited. Excellent video 👀

[GLC]

Glad he’s mellowed out. No piece of art is worth risking others’ safety and physical/mental health.

[jamessealy]

Getting a good picture is never an excuse for abusive behavior. I’ve delt with someone almost exactly like this, no bathroom breaks and all. I don’t care how successful he is, he has no excuse to be abusive.

[Jurassic]

He's a good director, but I have no time for this mentality that the end justifies the means. Denying toilet breaks is nothing short of an abuse of power - this is why we need Unions.

[amanofnoreputation]

It is reported that James Cameron's motivation for visiting the most hostile location on Earth at the bottom of the Mariana trench was that he had acclimatized to being under bone-crushing pressure and needed some place to chill out before he worked on Avatar 2, otherwise he'd get the bends from depressurizing too quickly.
With that out of the way, he could safely mellow out his directing style.

[bobo]

“Bad acting call the police” funniest thing that ever came out of James Cameron’s mouth. The entire T-shirt is it gold mine.

[francoisleveille]

There's an old saying "harmony is more important than the objective". Hope Cameron learned it.

[jimk]

I've read stories about allot of those things, he's a damn good director but geez no bathroom break for 10 hrs. That stuff wouldn't go over these days.

[simransidhu]

Cameron felt restricted by cast and crew in a physical space, so he got rid of everyone and and everything, and made his film in one fully controllable virtual set where he can hand everything off to CG teams.

[Resimaster]

I've met a couple of actors who've worked with Cameron and the general concensus was that he's tough but incredibly driven and it really shows in the quality of the work he produces.
He's a filmmaking genius and proud of his achievements, but it's good to see that he's also more open-minded and respectful now, as being the best also requires being humble too.

[ShindlerReal]

Jim: let's have bathroom breaks this time

Film takes 13 years to make.

[johnprudent]

Heard this stuff since Titanic. Some of it I get. He’s creating something and wants it to be the best it can possibly be. So he feels the need to maintain control of his process and vision at every stage. As an artist I get it and understand. But not at the cost of another person’s dignity and such. No bathroom breaks? Come on man. THAT in itself is not worth it.
I’ll say this though, he looks way better than David O. Russell (based on the video I saw about him). Cameron’s results also speak for themselves. The fact he was willing to try and change his ways after seeing Ron Howard in action also says a lot.
P.S. I’m surprised the story about the exhausted Titanic crew member who had a car accident while driving home didn’t come up in this story. I remember hearing about after the movie came out. But it could be one of those urban legend type stories.