James Cameron Shares a Harrowing Story of How He Almost Died While Shooting THE ABYSS

After the recent premiere of James Cameron’s 2K restoration special edition of The Abyss, the filmmaker did a Q&A. During that panel, Cameron casually revealed that he also died during the film’s production. As you know, Cameron likes shooting some of his films underwater and he has his actors go through training to perform underwater.

This was something he did on The Abyss, along with his Avatar films. While describing the process by which his team would supervise the actors to ensure they were safe, Cameron mentioned that he almost died during production. He said:

“We had the ‘angels,’ which were the safety divers that were right there, and each one was assigned to one or two of the actors and just kept them in sight the whole time. [But] they weren’t watching me.”

Cameron then went on to describe the harrowing event of how he had to fight for survival while he was shooting the movie! While Cameron was an experienced diver, the diving equipment he was using didn’t work properly:

“We were working 30 feet down. For me to be able to move the camera around on the bottom I wore heavy weights around my feet, no fins, a heavy weight belt around my waist.

“When the tank gets low, you get a warning that you’re about to run out of air. Well, this thing had a piston servo regulator in it, so it was one breath… and then nothing. Everybody’s setting lights and nobody’s watching me. I’m trying to get [underwater director of photography] Al Giddings attention on the p.a. but Al had been involved in a diving accident and he blew out both eardrums so he was deaf as a post, and I’m wasting my last breath of air on an underwater p.a. system going ‘Al… Al…’ and he’s working away with his back to me.”

Cameron went on to explain that he was able to remove his gear, but then he hit another hurdle… the safety divers, who he thought were helping him. He explained what went wrong there: 

“The safety diver gets to be about ten feet from the surface and he sticks a regulator in my mouth that he didn’t check. It had been banging around the bottom of the tank for three weeks and had a rip through the diaphragm — so I purged carefully and took a deep breath… of water. And then I purged it again, and I took another deep breath… of water.”

At this point, the director said “It was almost check out point” and to get out of the situation he found himself in he had to punch one of the “angels.” He continued:

“At that point it was almost check out point and the safety divers are taught to hold you down so you don’t embolize and let your lungs overexpand going up. But I knew what I was doing. And he wouldn’t let me go, and I had no way to tell him the regulator wasn’t working. So I punched him in the face and swam to the surface and therefore survived.”

And that, my friends, is the story of how James Cameron almost died drowning while he was shooting The Abyss.

Via: Variety