‘Am I dead?’: Kate Winslet filmed reaction to holding breath for 7 minutes for Avatar 2

Actor ‘smashed’ Tom Cruise’s record

Kate Winslet recorded herself resurfacing after holding her breath underwater while filming Avatar: The Way of Water.

In 2020, the Titanic star first made headlines with her record-breaking seven-minute and 15-second breath hold while shooting James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel.

Winslet recently spoke with Games Radar about “smashing” previous records set by Tom Cruise during his six-minute underwater sequence for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in 2015.

“I have the video of me surfacing saying, ‘Am I dead, have I died?’ And then going, ‘What was [my time]?’” Winslet said.

“Straight away I wanted to know my time. And I couldn’t believe it… The next thing I say is, ‘We need to radio set. I wanted Jim [Cameron] to know right away.”

Director Cameron later joked: “She’s not competitive at all.”

“Well, I didn’t have to hold my breath for over seven minutes,” Winslet explained.

‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ (AP)

“It’s just that the opportunity to set a record presented itself. I wanted to break my own record, which was already six minutes and 14 seconds. And I was like, ‘Come on!’ So I smashed my own record by a minute.”

Winslet portrays Ronal, the female leader of the film’s water-dwelling community, opposite Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña, who reprise their leading roles as Jake Sully and Neytiri, respectively.

Cameron’s sequel comes 13 years after its 2009 predecessor, Avatar, broke box-office earnings with $2.9bn (£2.4bn).

Now, in order to make more money than the second film cost to make, The Way of Water must become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history”.

Avatar: The Way of Water releases in cinemas on 16 December. Read The Independent’s three-star review of the film here.