The stars of "Avatar 2: The Way of the Water" named their breath-holding times

Ahead of the world premiere of "Avatar 2: The Way of the Water," which will be December 14, 2022, the stars of the sci-fi drama shared their personal achievements in holding their breath on set. Zoe Soldana proudly stated that she managed not to breathe for almost five minutes. Sigourney Weaver was able to hold her breath for six and a half minutes underwater, and she said it was thanks to her instructor's guidance. "He told us to get rid of our mammalian instinct: 'Oh my God, my face is in the water.' So, you tune in for a few minutes to surrender your body to the water element and let the feeling of being a land person dissolve," Weaver shared her experience.
Despite Soldana and Weaver's impressive performance, the champion was Kate Winslet, whose record is seven minutes. James Cameron admitted that neither he nor Winslet had any idea it was possible: "Kate is a demon of training, so she grasped freediving as a basis for creating her character. Kate's character is someone who grew up underwater and adapted to life in the ocean Navi. These Navi are so physically different from their forest counterparts that we almost classified them as a subspecies. So underwater she had to keep perfectly free and appear calm. And it turned out that she looked as natural as possible."
When asked to explain what a film with real underwater footage would gain compared to pictures like "Aquaman 2" or "The Little Mermaid," Cameron replied, "Oh, I don't know, maybe it looks cool? Think about it for yourself! You want it to look like people are underwater, so they have to be underwater. That makes sense, because if you were doing a Western, you'd be learning how to ride. I knew Sam was a surfer, but Sigourney and Zoe and the others weren't particularly ocean-oriented. So I went into great detail about what it would take, and we invited the best breath-holding experts in the world to tell them about it."
The best diving and freediving movies
Blue Abyss (1988)
The Deep Dive (2020)
Blue Abyss 2" (2019)
Sanctum" (2011)
One Breath" (2020)