Kate Winslet Had A Hilarious Reaction To Beating Tom Cruise's Breath-Holding Record

If director James Cameron has anything to say about it, you'll probably want to brace yourselves for a heavy dose of H20 with "Avatar: The Way of Water," especially when it comes to its new batch of characters. Among the sprawling roster is a Metkayina Na'vi named Ronal, who acts as the spiritual leader of her people. As the Omaticaya Na'vi are spiritually rooted to their connection with the forest, Ronal's clan is more in touch with the aquatic landscape of Pandora. In the highly-anticipated sequel, Jake (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and other members of the Omaticaya clan end up coming into contact with the Metkayina tsahìk (or leader), who happens to be played by fellow Cameron alum Kate Winslet.

Given that Winslet's species of Na'vi is one with the water, it stands to reason that she would have to spend a great deal of time in the drink. As "Avatar" had Cameron working tirelessly to redefine the possibilities of performance capture and shooting in 3D, the sequel only pushed the moviemaking madman to go and develop state-of-the-art technology that helped bring Winslet's underwater performance to life.

Working in the water may have taken a lot out of her, but the rigorous process led Winslet to break an insane record that once belonged to Tom Cruise.

While making "Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation," Cruise was able to hold his breath underwater for over 6 and a half minutes to film a key action sequence. In Winslet's case, however, she ended up holding her breath for about a good 45 seconds longer, with an unbelievable record of 7 minutes and 15 seconds. During a virtual press conference attended by /Film, the Academy Award-winning actress talked about how she was nervous when it came time to go under for another dive, which led to a hilarious reaction when she learned she had pulled off a record: 

"I have the video of me surfacing saying 'Am I dead? Am I dead? Have I died?' And then going 'what was it?' Straight away I wanted to know my time. I couldn't believe it was 7:15, but then having been told it's 7:15, you want to know what the next thing I say is? 'We need to radio set.' I wanted Jim to know right away. That's the first thing I wanted to do."

The true winner in all of this is free dive trainer Kirk Krack, who oversaw the underwater stunts of both "Rogue Nation" and "The Way of Water."

Winslet was able to obtain the footage thanks to her husband Edward Abel Smith sneaking in with a camera as she came up, which led to the whirlwind reaction. Given how casually Cruise thrusts himself into danger for our amusement, it's pretty incredible Winslet showed him up by nearly half a minute. But like the always-prepared Cruise, her training had to properly prepare her for pulling off this stunt, lest they had a repeat of the "Titanic" shoot.

It was pretty surprising to see Winslet return to a Cameron production considering she nearly drowned while filming "Titanic." In 1999, she even vowed to never work on the director's films ever again unless she was paid an enormous sum. It appears, however, that the two have made up along the way, as she seemed excited about working in the water with him this time around.

Back in 2020, Winslet proudly talked about the stunt with Entertainment Tonight, where she claimed that the very heightened underwater regiment in the 40 foot-wide tank led to her being able to pull this feat off ... and probably never again:

"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."

When it came to filming, Winslet had to learn how to safely free dive and hold her breath, as the use of scuba suits would have made it difficult for the motion capture technology to work its magic. It's a lot to ask of any actor, but she managed to pull it off by the skin of her teeth, and show up a fellow movie star in the process.

"Avatar: The Way of Water" is set to hit theaters on December 16, 2022.