James Cameron: Lasting Impact

Q: With True Lies, you're going for that difficult synthesis called "action comedy." What does that mean to you?

A: I wouldn't call it a comedy, but it has a lot of comedy in it.

Q: It's your first film that's not science fiction, and it doesn't involve the complicated special effects of T2.

A: Yeah, it's not as big a picture as T2. It's a more complex picture on other levels because of the relationships and humor. But in terms of seeing that sort of stunning science fiction image that existed only in your dreams previously--like the guy coming out of the linoleum floor in T2--that doesn't exist in this film. It takes our shared cultural fantasy from the '60s of what espionage was all about and has fun with it. It has a pop sensibility--the spy stuff I loved as a kid: James Bond, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "I Spy." But it's really a movie about relationships. It's not for kids.

Q: But kids were a big part of T2's audience.

A: Well, kids will go, because it's got jet planes and explosions and good action, but ultimately it's for anyone over 15 who's been in a relationship or wants to be in one.

Q: Was there a conscious decision to make a film smaller in scale than T2?

A: No. When Arnold and I sat down to talk about this, we said, "We've gotta go big. We're gonna be compared to Bond pictures and we have to deliver the goods." It's big in that sense. My term for the movie is "domestic epic." It juxtaposes the guy's home life with his work. His wife doesn't have any clue what he does, but then she kind of gets sucked into that. Ultimately, the movie is about the unknowability of people and how that's a good thing if you are in a relationship.

Q: How does the comedy element get in there?

A: Because marriages are inherently funny, when viewed from the outside. It's like that old expression: Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.

Q: One look at your films proves you're an outrageously confident director. What allows you to work on such a gigantic scale and take risks that could be considered sheer lunacy?

A: The necessity of a challenge. I mean, the work is extremely tedious. It's detail-oriented. You do the same thing over and over. Something that may seem bright and spontaneous in the final film will have been thought about and storyboarded and planned like a military campaign for a year in advance. So there's not a lot of satisfaction on a daily basis in the work itself. The satisfaction comes from setting a challenge for myself beyond what I've done before and then flogging myself to meet that challenge. It's a sickness. Disturbed people do this, basically. People who, if they weren't able to do it, would probably be on Thorazine.

Q: And you've also got to have an ego large enough to withstand the possibility of failure.

A: You know what? I don't think I fear failure any more now than I did when I was making The Terminator. In a funny way, that film was my most critical juncture. There's nothing I can do now which can take away the good shit that I've already done. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm sliding for home. Even if True Lies tanks, I still made those other movies. I worried on Terminator when I didn't know if I was a filmmaker or not. But if you think about that stuff, you're creating a defeatist mentality. A movie is like a war that's fought on many different fronts simultaneously. You're editing simultaneously with shooting. You're dealing with the location you're on and the one coming up. To wage that kind of battle, you can't have a negative image of any kind.

Q: So you didn't let it get to you when, during preproduction for True Lies, Arnold came out in Last Action Hero--also an action-comedy--and the movie died a horrible death?

A: At first I was a little nervous. But then I started thinking about why Last Action Hero didn't work. My current theory is that it totally stepped outside and looked in on and made fun of the audiences who were willing to invest in Arnold--essentially, it was ridiculing the very fans it was hoping to attract.

Q: The movie was savaged by critics and was a major box-office disappointment.

A: First of all, I disagree with them savaging the film. You have to look at the fact that, regardless of whether it was the best film Arnold ever made, it was necessary, at that exact moment in history, for the media to cut him down to size. It didn't matter what he did. Thank God I wasn't making that picture! He stepped in the shit--that simple. And the result was so overblown and negative. It's not that bad of a film. I believe that basically everything in the universe oscillates. Everything is a wave. It's quantum physics. I studied physics in college. Everything goes back and forth. Tide goes in, tide goes out--Arnold had been surfing that tide for a long time. Tide went back out. Hopefully it will be coming back in on my movie.

Q: Clearly, it will take more than one film to derail the Arnold juggernaut, but was he angry or surprised at what happened to Last Action Hero?

A: The only reaction I could perceive from Arnold--and I've worked with him for 10 years--was that he decided he wanted to go less toward comedy and more toward hard action, which was basically a retrenchment for him. Now, my only interest in True Lies was to do comedy. Action to me is boring, in and of itself, unless it can be contextualized. So I said no, we have to go for it. We have to pop the jokes.

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