James Cameron isn't mincing words about why he's moved Down Under. In an appearance on the In Depth With Graham Bensinger podcast, the Avatar director praised New Zealand's pandemic response and vaccination uptake, while knocking the United States for what he sees as a broad rejection of science. Per Variety, Cameron said New Zealand "eliminated the virus completely" twice, and later faced variants with a roughly 98% vaccination rate. By contrast, he cited a much lower US rate, adding that it was "going [in] the wrong direction." That, he said, is "why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane, as opposed to the United States."
The Guardian notes that Cameron, 71, and his wife bought their farm in New Zealand in 2011 and have since moved there permanently. He framed the choice to Bensinger starkly: Live in a place that "believes in science" and can pull together, or in one that's "extremely polarized, turning its back on science," and vulnerable to the next pandemic. When Bensinger suggested the US is still "a fantastic place to live," Cameron shot back, "Is it?" And when the host marveled at New Zealand's scenery, the filmmaker replied, "I'm not there for scenery, I'm there for the sanity."
The comments track with remarks Cameron made a year earlier on The F---ing News podcast, where he said his New Zealand citizenship was "imminent" and criticized the direction of the US under Donald Trump, per Variety. He described what he saw as a "turn away from everything decent" and warned that bad actors were "hollowing out" American ideals for political gain.
In New Zealand, he said, there's a stronger sense that "everybody has this kind of equal status in terms of personhood," something he wanted his children to grow up with. Cameron also said he feels "safer" there and appreciates that local news outlets don't put Trump "on the front page every single day," likening US coverage of the president to watching "a car crash over and over and over."
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