Kate Winslet held her breath underwater for more than seven minutes in
"Avatar: The Way of the Water," breaking a record previously held by Tom
Cruise.
Winslet shared details with USA Today as James
Cameron's "Avatar" sequel hit theaters on Friday.
Winslet stars alongside Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Weaver, Vin
Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Sigourney Weaver, and more in "Avatar: The Way of the
Water."
Winslet told the outlet she trained and learned how to
free dive ahead of the film, which allowed her to remain underwater for
seven minutes and 14 seconds.
Her time officially broke a record
set by Cruise, who held his breath underwater for six minutes while filming
"Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" in 2015.
"Poor Tom," the
actress told USA Today. "I mean, I don't know Tom at all – I've never met
him in my life – but I'm sure he's getting very fed up of hearing this story
of how I broke his record. I loved it, though. ... I was amazed how good I
was at it and how I just kept getting better."
In the same interview, Weaver – who appeared in both "Avatar"
films – added that she held her breath for six minutes and 30 seconds.
"We were delighted for Kate that she did that," Weaver said. "My
husband (theater director Jim Simpson) and I both did 6 ½ minutes, which was
astonishing to us and our teacher, Kirk Krack, who teaches the Navy SEALs.
Everyone had a personal best."
In December, Cameron
told ComicBook.com that the special effects in "Avatar 2" were better
than Marvel films.
"Industrial Light & Magic does great work, but when it
comes to the kind of emotive facial stuff that we're doing… Thanos? Come on.
Give me a break. You saw this movie. It's not even close. It's what Weta
did," he told the outlet.