James Cameron has a reputation for being a bit of a hardass in Hollywood. The Avatar director is intense, takes his job very seriously, and runs his sets like the Navy.
He has a soft side though, and it has worked to broaden the appeal of his movies and make him a four-quadrant filmmaker, not a thing to take lightly in an industry that’s demographic-obsessed for box-office-related reasons.
Imagine Titanic without Jack and Rose, The Way of Water without family at its centre, or his Alien sequel without the action movie‘s light flirtation. No, thanks.
The Oscar-winning director told Empire, “all of my movies are love stories, but I wouldn’t say my creative process necessarily starts there, except for the obvious one: Titanic.”
“Then as I try to figure out how to create real emotional stakes for the characters, my stories somehow always become love stories. I guess I’ve always believed that to be truly heroic, a character must put someone else before themselves and be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary. It may be new love, it may be a marriage being tested, it may be the love of a parent for a child. I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.”
Cameron can shoot epic action and intense Terminator kills for days, yet avoids the trappings of dismissing what some may call a feminine touch, and it has paid off.
Check out James Cameron movies ranked, see where he lands on our best movies of all time list, or look ahead to new movies with the Avatar 3 release date.