Meet James Cameron's Wife, Suzy Amis

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Director James Cameron is regarded as one of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers. Responsible for the "Terminator" movie franchise, the Canadian-born director can also boast of sweeping the 1998 Academy Awards with his megahit blockbuster "Titanic." Meanwhile, in early 2026, Cameron's third "Avatar" movie — "Avatar: Fire and Ash" — surpassed $1 billion at the box office, as the previous two did (the first "Avatar," in fact, raked in a staggering $2.92 billion to become the single highest-grossing film in Hollywood history.

For the past quarter-century, Suzy Amis has been by Cameron's side. She is his spouse and life partner and has gone by Suzy Amis Cameron ever since their wedding in 2000. Amis was a successful actor before shifting her focus to environmental activism and her ongoing campaign urging people to cut down on meat and eat more plant-based foods, a passion her husband shares.

It's been in that regard that Amis has also carved out a role as a public speaker and author in her own right while also raising the three children she and Cameron share. To find out more about this fascinating public figure, read further and meet James Cameron's wife, Suzy Amis.

A native of Oklahoma City, Suzy Amis was still a teenager when she began modeling. Initially signed with Oklahoma City's Harrison-Gers Agency, her photos eventually wound up in the hands of Eileen Ford, head of Ford Models, one of America's most prestigious modeling agencies. Ford was so impressed that she flew the 16-year-old to New York City and signed her on the spot. So bullish was Ford on the agency's new acquisition that, a mere four days later, Ford introduced Amis as "the face of the '80s" in an episode of "The Merv Griffin Show."

For the next few years, Amis enjoyed the life of a top international model, splitting her time between New York and Europe. While other girls her age were fretting about homework and school dances, Amis was walking the runways at Paris fashion shows, appearing in the pages of fashion magazines. And while the lifestyle was glamorous, Amis didn't love it. She yearned to act, and while modeling brought her a comfortable income, she focused on taking acting classes. She finally got her chance in 1984, landing a role on the TV cop show "Miami Vice." That, she told The Oklahoman, convinced her she needed to aim for movies. "That was a horrific experience," Amis said.

However, completing the transition from model to actor did not come easily. Even after making her film debut in 1985's "Fandango," she still felt tarred by the model-turned-actor stigma. "I couldn't get people to take me seriously because I was a model," she said in a different interview with The Oklahoman. "They'd say 'Yeah, but ... '"

While filming "Fandango," Suzy Amis met co-star Sam Robards. He was instantly smitten. "But I remember that when I first met Suzy, I was blown away. We had a small conversation, and I was just blown away," Robards recalled in an interview. Not only was Robards an up-and-coming young actor, but he was also a bona fide Hollywood scion, son of Jason Robards and fellow movie icon Lauren Bacall.

In the film, Amis' "Fandango" character romanced Kevin Costner, who experienced a stunning transformation in the years that followed. In real life, though, it was Amis and Robards who became an item. They tied the knot in 1986, and the ceremony took place in the garden of her parents' home in Oklahoma City. Following a honeymoon in Tahiti, they settled down in New York. During this period, Amis followed her new husband's advice to establish herself as a serious actor by doing theater in New York. After much auditioning, she finally landed her dream role, in an off-Broadway production of the play "Fresh Horses." Robards' advice paid off when her performance was met by rave reviews, with New York Times theater critic Frank Rich praising her New York stage debut as "mesmerizing." 

In 1990, Amis and Robards welcomed a son, Jasper. The marriage, however, was not destined to last. They divorced in 1994.

By the late 1990s, the acting career of Suzy Amis was heating up when director James Cameron cast her in "Titanic." She played the granddaughter of survivor Rose (played by Kate Winslet, whose experience shooting the movie was far less romantic than it seemed, and by Gloria Stuart as an older woman in the present). During production of the film in 1994, Cameron and Amis had an affair. 

At the time, however, Cameron was involved with Linda Hamilton, who became one of the actresses who did serious training for a role when she became an action hero for the second "Terminator" movie. "Work and women go hand in hand for Jimbo, and I should know," Hamilton told the Daily Mail of Cameron, who'd first become romantically linked with Cameron while they made "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" in 1991. Cameron and Amis ended their affair, while he and Hamilton remained a couple and then welcomed daughter Josephine in 1993. Cameron and Hamilton got married in 1997, but the marriage didn't last; Cameron reconnected with Amis in 1998, which led Hamilton to file for divorce in 1999. In her filing, Hamilton petitioned for half of what Cameron had earned for "Titanic" and reportedly walked away from their marriage $50 million wealthier.

That was Cameron's fourth divorce. It wouldn't be long before the director walked down the aisle for a fifth time.

Soon after his expensive divorce from Linda Hamilton had been settled, in 2000, James Cameron married Suzy Amis. Unlike his previous unions, this marriage has lasted 25 years and counting. The couple are parents of three children, daughters Claire and Elizabeth and son Quinn.

In an interview with Closer Weekly, Amis revealed the secret to the longevity of their marriage. "Listening," she said. "And having interests together." And while some couples swear by regular date nights to keep the fire burning, that hasn't been the case for Amis and Cameron. "We never go out on date night. We never go out," she added. "We go and hide from the kids."

As she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2025, they love living a low-key life together and relish the simplicity of chilling out at home. "It's us walking around the house in socks, being voracious readers, building fires, and hanging out — after 30 years, there's never a moment we don't have something to talk about," she said. Cameron echoed that in a 2012 interview with The Telegraph, declaring, "Believe me, I think you'll find that I was the low-maintenance one in most of my relationships, I just kept picking complex, independent women." He continued by recalling, "Look, I'm a perfectionist and I strive for excellence, and if that means more than one take, then I'll keep plugging away. As I told my wife Suzy on our wedding day, this is my final take."

In 2011, Suzy Amis and James Cameron saw a film that changed their lives, the documentary "Forks Over Knives." The film follows people suffering from various degenerative health woes, demonstrating how chronic illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease can be both prevented and reversed by adopting a plant-based diet. Both Amis and Cameron found the argument so compelling that they decided to eschew meat from then on, adopting a vegan diet. "It's not a requirement to eat animals, we just choose to do it, so it becomes a moral choice and one that is having a huge impact on the planet, using up resources and destroying the biosphere," Cameron told The Telegraph. 

As he pointed out, their decision to empty their refrigerator of all meat and dairy products wasn't just because of the inherent health benefits, but also due to environmental concerns over the role that large-scale cattle ranching plays in escalating climate change. "But what has really been a major eye opener is the connection between food and the environment," Amis told NPR's "The Salt." "Now, we're benefiting greatly from eating plant-based, as are our children, but the environmental piece has become really our sole focus."

According to Amis, environmentalism and veganism are actually two sides of the same coin. "You can't really call yourself an environmentalist if you're still consuming animals," she added. "You just can't."

In 2004, Suzy Amis picked up her 4-year-old daughter from school and asked what she'd learned that day — and discovered that she and her classmates had been taught math with candy. "The school she was going to — that touted itself as an environmental school — was teaching my child to count with M&M's," Amis told NPR's "The Salt." "And everything in my life came to a screeching halt." After some frank conversations with husband James Cameron, they each came to their respective decisions. "He decided to make 'Avatar,' and I decided to start Muse," she said of Muse School, which she and her sister, Rebecca Amis, launched in 2006. 

Muse reflects the environmental activism that Amis and her husband have been involved in for decades, featuring classrooms built from recycled materials, with self-sustaining energy derived from solar panels, and even hiring a falconer, whose hawks chow down on rodents in the school's vegetable gardens so pesticides aren't required.  

In 2014, Amis took a further step by banishing meat and dairy from her school, offering students an entirely plant-based menu, using produce grown on-site and cooked with energy from solar panels. "In the fall of 2015, Muse will be the only school we are aware of that is completely plant-based," Amis told The Hollywood Reporter. "Plant-based eating — meaning the meals that are served at Muse will be 100% plant-based,"  Cameron added.

Suzy Amis has demonstrated her commitment to environmental issues, and she's also proved she can walk the walk. That came through loud and clear ahead of the 2009 Oscars, when she introduced her Red Carpet Green Dress (RCGD) campaign. Its intent was unique, devised to partner up-and-coming fashion designers with environmentally focused mentors to create sustainable clothing for celebrities to wear on the red carpet while attending the Academy Awards.

As Amis told Vogue, it all began when she began accompanying husband James Cameron to award season events for "Avatar," and found herself facing a dearth of sustainable options when seeking outfits to wear on red carpets. "I realized there was an opportunity to have a more meaningful and impactful conversation on that red carpet," she explained. As she began exploring options, she came to realize just how unsustainable the fashion industry actually was. "I don't think I realized the actual impact of the waste when it comes to fashion until I started Red Carpet Green Dress and started to dive into it more," she explained. "Our impact is staggering."

The initiative proved a hit and has continued to become more prevalent in the years since. However, despite the good intentions behind RCDG, convincing actors to consider sustainable clothing was initially an uphill battle. As Red Carpet Green Dress CEO Samata Pattinson told CNN, "[I]t was really difficult to get talent on board with our campaign, because they had a limited view of what it would look like ... They were anxious, they didn't know if it would look good. The assumption was that it would be hemp, something 'granola.'"

Suzy Amis continued to demonstrate her bona fides as an environmental activist when she and husband James Cameron co-founded the Plant Power Task Force. An outgrowth of their commitment to veganism, the task force was launched to investigate the link between meat consumption and climate change. "The average person has little to no awareness of the role our animal-based diet plays in climate change, or that livestock is responsible for 14.5% of annual human-made greenhouse gas emissions, more pollution than all the world's vehicles combined," she said in a statement on the task force's website.

"My personal message is about making the world a better place for our children to grow up for generations to come," Amis explained in an interview with Kim Lewand Martin. Pointing out that time was rapidly running out for humanity to slow climate change, she remained insistent that each person on the planet can play a role. "We have no more time," she added. "But what can one person do? Change your eating habits. It will make a significant impact and move the dial on climate change."

It was back in 2012 that Suzy Amis and James Cameron spent $16 million to purchase a 2,500-acre plot of land in New Zealand. The purchase of the land, surrounding Lake Pounui in the Wairarapa Valley, hinged upon approval from the New Zealand government that they would agree to maintain at least part of the property — which, at the time, had been utilized as a cattle ranch — as a working farm. At the time, Cameron told The New York Times that they planned to diversify away from cows in order to maintain the couple's environmental stance. "So we're looking for something more crop based," he said. "I don't want to be a hypocrite."

Over time, the couple built their dream home there, and the family settled down in New Zealand. In the summer of 2025, Cameron officially became a New Zealand citizen; as of early 2026, Amis had yet to obtain her own Kiwi citizenship, but the process was well underway. 

As Amis told Stuff, the lifestyle they enjoy in their new home is worlds away from what they'd experienced in Los Angeles. "Jim will usually drive the kids down to the lake, and they're all down there playing in the lake, the dogs are there, and I just take a really long way down there and hang out with the family, then Jim takes them back up in the car and I just meander around and walk back, in a meditative space," she explained.

True to their word, by 2015, James Cameron and Suzy Amis were already making progress in shifting the use of their New Zealand land from dairy farming to plant-based agriculture. That year, the couple purchased Te Manaia Organics, a business devoted to growing organic vegetables.

While it may be true that there are some green brands that aren't as sustainable as you think, that's not the case with the businesses launched by Cameron and Amis. By 2021, the couple's agriculture business — Cameron Family Farms — was New Zealand's largest producer of organic brassicas (cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower). Sheep and cows remained on the property, but their purpose wasn't to provide either milk or meat, but simply to graze, the most effective and environmentally friendly way to regenerate land.

Transitioning from dairy farming to vegetables, Amis told Stuff, had become a passion for both her and her husband. "When you think about being able to do something that will not only help the environment, but that will help people's health, build soil, use less water, cut down on your carbon footprint — that's exciting," she said. "That's what excites us, excites me."

While Suzy Amis and her husband James Cameron had changed their lifestyle by giving up meat and dairy and embracing an entirely plant-based diet, they became evangelists for that cause. However, they soon came to realize that their message often fell on deaf ears by those who felt their efforts to be too extreme. "Jim and I eat only plant-based foods, and once we started, we were always on our soapbox — people ran in the other direction when they saw us coming," she admitted when she sat down for an interview with talk show host-turned-media mogul Oprah Winfrey, appearing in Oprah Daily. "I realized we needed a more accessible approach, a plan."

That plan emerged in 2019 with the publication of her book, "The OMD Plan." The book's mission is to encourage readers to eschew one meat- and/or dairy-heavy meal each day for a plant-based alternative — a far more palatable option than the all-or-nothing approach that she and Cameron had taken.

As Amis explained, animal-based agriculture is the second-biggest factor fueling climate change, contributing slightly more than pollution from the world's combined transportation. Even swapping one meal a day could make a significant difference. "If you eat a single plant-based meal each day as one of your three meals, you will be saving tens of thousands of gallons of water every year and drastically reducing your carbon output," said Amis. "Not to mention the health benefits."