Legendary filmmaker James Cameron has a number of wildly impressive accomplishments on his resume. He created some of the industry’s greatest modern science-fiction movies, from The Terminator and its sequel to The Abyss and Aliens. From a box office perspective, Cameron remains king. The director currently has three of the top four highest grossing movies of all time in Titanic and his two Avatar movies. That stat might only increase once Avatar 3 arrives in theaters… providing it arrives in theaters on time. But there’s an element of Cameron’s work that I think gets overlooked sometimes, and I was happy to bring it up with Titanic and Avatar: The Way of Water star Kate Winslet during a recent conversation.
When you survey James Cameron’s filmography, you will notice that he writes exquisite female characters, and often makes female leads the heroes of his films. This includes Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, extends to Linda Hamilton in the Terminator films, as well as Jamie Lee Curtis (True Lies) and Winslet herself. Because Winslet was given the opportunity to once again play a strong, female warrior in Avatar: The Way of Water, I asked her about Cameron’s penchant for writing powerful women into his scripts, and what that means to her. And she told CinemaBlend:
His screenplays are so powerful, and always because at the heart is a strong woman. And it’s not just that that woman is emotionally strong. She’s physically strong. She’s resilient. She’s a leader. She’s capable. She’s loving. She’s welcoming. She’s kind. She’s compassionate. And Avatar is just full of female characters like that. And that’s the world I want to live in! That’s the mother I want to always be. So I was very inspired by those themes, because they really do underpin the narrative.
Watching Avatar: The Way of Water, it’s hard not to get swept up in the incredible story of Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri, and the fight she wages to protect her children from invaders. This even led to the character having beef with Spider, a child she once thought of as her own who turned his back on the family unit… creating all sorts of headaches. We have to assume that emotional conflict will be explored in Avatar 3.
Kate Winslet is no stranger to playing powerful women on screen. Her performance in HBO’s Mare of Easttown inspired her co-star Evan Peters as he prepared to play Jeffrey Dahmer. Off screen, she also has a blast poking fun at Tom Cruise for beating his box office records, and inspiring young female journalists to break into the industry by answering their toughest questions. Honestly, we’d follow Winslet anywhere. And by all accounts, that path will lead us to a third Avatar movie, one of the many Upcoming 2024 Movie Releases we have on our radar.