KATE WINSLET BREAKS RECORD FOR LONGEST PERIOD UNDERWATER WITHOUT OXYGEN

Breaking a world record in anything is an amazing accomplishment, but I'm sure it can be frightening to be in danger while doing it. After setting a record for the longest time spent holding her breath underwater during filming, Kate Winslet truly believed she had passed away. The 49-year-old Titanic star was filming The Way of Water, the follow-up to Avatar, on Saturday, October 5. The James Cameron-directed movie, which debuted in 2022, tells Jake Sully's (Sam Worthington) story in its entirety. In the film, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and an adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) are the four children that Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) now share. Over ten years have passed since the first film, and they still have to deal with the threat posed by the "sky people," who are once again led by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang). In the meantime, Cliff Curtis's Tonowari and Kate Winslet's Ronal lead the oceanic Metkayina clan. To prepare for her "underwater" role, Winslet spent "three weeks of the training every single day" on set. During an interview on The Graham Norton Show, the actor described how she came to be in control of her body's oxygen distribution. She described the procedure as "quite extraordinary, quite detailed." In a video, Winslet and her trainer are seen trying to finish the underwater exercise of seeing how long she can hold her breath.

Winslet asks, "Am I dead?" after taking a moment to pull her head out of the water to catch her breath. Then she says, "I'm not sure. It was possibly 6:10. 7:10 might have been the time. Upon disclosing a score of "7:15," a record, the trainer startled the actor, who leapt to his feet in excitement. She broke the six-minute record set by Tom Cruise during the filming of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Speaking to Total Film, Winslet explained: "I have the video of me surfacing saying, 'Am I dead, have I died?' and asking, "What was [my time]?" after that. "I wanted to know my time right away. And it was unbelievable to me. I said, "We need to radio set," after that. Jim needed to know immediately. "Well, it didn't take me more than seven minutes to hold my breath. Simply put, the chance to break the record was there. As my personal best was already six minutes and fourteen seconds, I wanted to beat it. And I thought, "Come on!" I thus broke my own record by a full minute." In order to hold her breath for longer than six minutes after taking a large gulp of extra oxygen, the actor trained with "elite military divers." "I had some reservations, but that was the purpose of the training. And my desire to do it was strong. "Oh, she's old, she can't do this," she said, not wanting anyone to assume that. "I'm hoping for something even crazier than anything I could imagine from the universe. I don't really tell myself that I'm incapable of doing something. Or, ‘You can’t do that.’ Give it to me! And we shall see."