Wednesday, December 17, 2025 |
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I'd prefer not to know how many times I've watched Terminator 2, because whatever the number is, it is too few. The "Extreme DVD" version was one of the most treasured movies in my collection. It came with a metal slipcase embossed with the iconic steel skeleton that lived under Arnold's skin. That was how I imagined James Cameron—a man with a hard, relentless machine inside him that brooked no dissent as he made all-time classics about violent men (or machines) and incredibly strong women. Maybe at one time, that was James Cameron. But in our interview with the legendary director, he surprised me, focusing on family, love, loss, the environment, and the deeply human purpose of his Avatar films. (The third Avatar film, Fire and Ash, hits theaters this weekend.) Of course, we also asked him about the machines everyone is afraid of right now, which will not need a cybernetic skeleton to take over Hollywood (or the rest of the world). Check out the interview below. —Kevin Dupzyk, contributing editor Plus: |
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The visionary explorer and filmmaker has ventured to the deepest point on the planet, predicted the coming AI apocalypse, and conquered the record for ticket sales. (His own.) His latest film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, might be his most audacious project yet. |
Our journey into James Cameron's universe begins at Lightstorm Entertainment in Manhattan Beach, California, the independent production company founded by the Canadian director, technologist, and explorer in 1990. Inside, it looks more like a museum than a film studio. To reach Cameron's office, you first walk through a hangar filled with an extensive collection of movie props. Life-size statues of Jake and Neytiri, the blue protagonists of the Avatar saga, stand alongside the steel skeleton of the Terminator, a replica of the infamous Queen from Aliens, and two models of the Titanic—both the massive structure used for underwater shots and the wreck featured in Cameron's documentary on the doomed ship. These displays set the stage for our meeting with the filmmaker. "An espresso?" Cameron asks as he welcomes us into a conference room hung with his sketches and posters from his youth. Then he sits down, ready for our talk—about his latest film, nature, technology, Hollywood, the future. |
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Brandon Sklenar is bawling his eyes out. It's 2022, he's thirty-one years old, and he just left the biggest audition of his life: 1923, the Yellowstone prequel from TV kingpin Taylor Sheridan. The adrenaline is surging through his body, so Sklenar races to the bathroom—a space to breathe. Rejection hits heavy and often in acting, which he knows painfully well, but this time is different. He can feel with a rare certainty that his hard work has finally paid off, and he's overcome with relief. "You really feel like Sisyphus pushing this monumental boulder up the hill," Sklenar tells me now. "Like you're the only person that can see why you keep doing it." Now thirty-five, he's sitting in a patch of grass in New York City on a break from production on his latest film. He's multitasking, talking with me while rolling a cigarette as he reminisces about a day he will never forget. "I left the room and called my dad like, 'I fucking got this,'" he recalls. "'I'm pretty fucking sure.'" |
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In 2004, the men of the inner circle watched in approval as twenty-year-old Brittany Crouch chugged expensive wine from an oversized glass. Around them, the crowd buzzed at Del Frisco's, the white-tablecloth steakhouse in midtown Manhattan populated by Wall Street guys wearing expensive suits and tourists spending a few hundred dollars pretheater. Brittany's rite of passage—not dissimilar to a fraternity hazing—was supervised by her grandfather, Paul Crouch Sr. (known to all as "the Godfather"), his handlers, and numerous powerful officials of Trinity Christian Center, the sprawling evangelical church they presided over. Brittany was being indoctrinated into the family business. In 1973, long before she was born, Paul and his wife, Jan, had founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), a small Christian TV station in southern California. In the five decades since, TBN has become the world's largest international Christian-based TV network. According to an onlooker, after the men cheered her on, Brittany was encouraged to vomit in the women's room. When she returned to the table, the fuzzy lights of Sixth Avenue blazing outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, she was no longer a young woman watching the family business from the sidelines. |
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