While filming Avatar 2, Kate Winslet held her breath underwater for a staggering amount of time, beating a record previously held by Tom Cruise.
It’s the record we’ve all been waiting to be broken: Tom Cruise’s hitherto unbeatabale, unthinkable record for holding his breath underwater while making a movie. The length of time in question, which was nabbed during the filming of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (much to the chagrin of ultra-competitive house-flipper Jeremy Renner, no doubt) was six minutes. That’s pretty impressive…unless you’re Kate Winslet.
That’s because the Titanic star was able to pass the six-minute mark and then some, setting the new bar at seven minutes and 14 seconds. The 45-year-old achieved this feat while re-teaming with old friend James Cameron on his forthcoming Avatar sequel, currently set for a 2022 release.
From Kate Winslet's recent interview in @THR: “I had to learn how to free-dive to play that role in Avatar, and that was just incredible. My longest breath hold was seven minutes and 14 seconds, like crazy, crazy stuff.” pic.twitter.com/ZYAmZdNgHS
— Avatar (@officialavatar) October 26, 2020
Winslet talked about the feat with Entertainment Tonight. “It’s so funny because I don’t really read reviews or media things,” she said. “I’m not on Instagram, like I’m just completely disconnected from that part of my life.”
"So all of this week and the week before, I’ve had people coming up to me at work saying, ‘Oh my God, like seven minutes and 14 seconds? Like, what?!” And I’m going, ‘What? Hang on, wait a minute. How do you know that?’"
So far as the achievement itself goes, Winslet is extremely happy about it. “It was brilliant and I was very proud of myself and I’ll probably never be able to do it again. That came at the end of four weeks worth of quite intense training and it was in the dive tank, it was in the training tank. But I loved it.”
These kinds of challenges are one of the reasons Winslet continues to love her job. “We’re very, very lucky as actors that often we have to learn a whole new skill.”
Does this once again raise questions about the raft from the end of Titanic? Absolutely. But that’s for another time. For now, we must revel in a truly revelatory underwater undertaking.
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