Director James Cameron on moving family to New Zealand over Covid response

Director James Cameron moved his family permanently due to New Zealand's Covid-19 response. Photo / Getty Images

James Cameron permanently moved his family to New Zealand because it handled the Covid-19 pandemic better than the US.

The 71-year-old film director “fell in love” with the country and its people when he first visited in 1994, and he bought a farm here in 2011 so he could spend a big chunk of time “going back and forth” from Southern California.

In an interview on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, James, who has been married to ex-actress-and-model Suzy Amis Cameron, 64, since 2000, said: “I made myself a promise I’m going to come live here someday.

“When Suzy and I were first getting serious, she said, ‘Fine, no problem.’ She was game.”

Cameron, who has three daughters, Claire, 23, Quinn, 21, and 18-year-old Elizabeth, said he and Suzy eyed properties while they lived in the US, but they decided to pack up and leave “as a family” during the pandemic in August 2020, while he was still working on 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water.

He said: “Now, later, we have children, we have a family, we’ve got roots in Malibu and Santa Barbara, that conversation had to be amended slightly, but we did say after Avatar, let’s make this happen.”

Cameron, who has also directed blockbusters, including 1997’s Titanic, and 1986’s Aliens, said “New Zealand had eliminated the virus completely twice” before a “third time when it showed up in a mutated form, it broke through”.

He continued: “But fortunately, they already had a 98% vaccination rate. This is why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane as opposed to the United States, where you had a 62% vaccination rate, and that’s going down – going the wrong direction.”

The Terminator director then asked: “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.”

During the chat, journalist Bensinger, 39, hailed the US as “a fantastic place to live”, to which Cameron interjected: “Is it?”

At another point in the discussion, Bensinger noted New Zealand’s stunning natural beauty, but Cameron added: “I’m not there for scenery, I’m there for the sanity.”