Kate Winslet Just Broke This Surprising Record Held By Tom Cruise
Award winner Kate Winslet can add another accolade to her resume with her work on Avatar 2, holding her breath in an underwater scene for an impressive seven minutes and 14 seconds, which shattered Tom Cruise's six minute record made on Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (via People).
Winslet told Entertainment Tonight that she didn't even realize what she'd done since she's not big on social media. "It's so funny because I don't really read reviews or media things. I'm not on Instagram, like I'm just completely disconnected from that part of my life. So all of this week and the week before, I've had people coming up to me at work saying, 'Oh my God, like seven minutes and 14 seconds? Like, what?!' And I'm going, 'What? Hang on, wait a minute. How do you know that?'"
It took a lot of work to be able to accomplish with a lot of time spent practicing and training. Winslet described her feat; "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."
Winslet found breath holding incredibly calming
Part of what she loved about it was the meditative aspect to the work. She explained to Collider, "I found the whole thing incredibly calming. There was something very meditative to me, and I don't meditate. I can't switch my brain off. [...] But somehow, learning how to [do a] breath hold was one of the most calming things I've ever done because you have to slow your body down. You actually have to lower your heart rate to be able to oxygenate your body and subsequently hold your breath for that long. So, I had no choice but to stop f***ing moving, which is not normal for me."
Safety sounds like it was the top priority for both the performers and the camera crew while they were submerged. Winslet told Collider, "There's so much safety underwater. There are two safety divers on every performer. There are two safety divers on every underwater camera. There were so many people in that tank. I probably felt safer down there than I did on dry land."
In Avatar 2, Winslet is working with James Cameron again; you may have seen their previous work together, a little film called Titanic. We don't know too much about her character at this point except, according to The Hollywood Reporter, her name is Ronal and she is, as Winslet described, "a water person." The movie is slated to come out in December 2022.