James Cameron (71), a famous Hollywood director famous for movies such as the ‘Avatar’ series and ‘Titanic’, which are also popular in Korea, revealed his reason for leaving the United States and immigrating to New Zealand, expressing his critical stance on various American policies.
According to US media on the 23rd (local time), Director Cameron recently appeared on the podcast ‘In Depth with Graham Bensinger’ and said, “Since the (COVID-19) pandemic began, New Zealand has eradicated the virus twice,” and “When it appeared in a mutated form the third time, it was breached again, but fortunately, we had already achieved a vaccination rate of 98%. This is why I love New Zealand.” He then pointed out, “Most people there (New Zealand) are sane, whereas in the United States the vaccination rate was only 62% and even that is decreasing. We are going in the wrong direction.”
Director Cameron then contrasted New Zealand and the United States, saying, “So where would you want to live? A place where people believe in science and are rational and where people are united and cooperate for a common goal, or a place where everyone is at each other’s throats, is extremely polarized and ignores science, and if another pandemic occurs, there will be complete chaos.”
When host Bensinger responded that the United States was still “a fantastic place to live,” Cameron asked, “Really?” Also, when Bensinger said, “New Zealand has amazingly beautiful scenery,” Director Cameron said, “I didn’t go there to see the scenery, I went to keep common sense.”
Cameron went on to say that he “feels safer” in New Zealand and that he “definitely feels comfortable that I don’t have to read about Trump on the front page of the newspaper every day. That’s disgusting. There’s something nice about the New Zealand media. At least they put (Trump stories) on page three.” He added, “I don’t want to see that person’s face on the front page of the newspaper anymore. But in America, I can’t avoid it. It’s like watching a car accident scene over and over again.”
Director Cameron, who was born in Canada and moved to California as a teenager, achieved great success by making the movie ‘The Terminator’. Since then, he has established himself as a leading Hollywood director with successive successes such as ‘Alien 2’, ‘True Lies’, ‘Titanic’, and ‘Avatar’.
Reporter Park Sang-hoon
