Avatar 2: Kate Winslet says she’s ‘proud’ after smashing Tom Cruise’s underwater filming record

‘I’ll never be able to do it again,’ actor admitted

Kate Winslet has smashed Tom Cruise's record for filming underwater – and she can't quite believe it.

The actor, 45, achieved the feat while filming Avatar 2, the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron’s 2009 hit Avatar.

Cruise previously held the record after breathing underwater while filming Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation back in 2011.

According to Avatar producer Jon Landau, Winslet broke it by a hefty 74 seconds, bringing the record to seven minutes and 14 seconds.

“It’s so funny because I don’t really read reviews or media things,” Winslet told Entertainment Tonight in a new interview. “I’m not on Instagram, like I’m just completely disconnected from that part of my life.”

She continued: “So all of this week and the week before, I’ve had people coming up to me at work saying, ‘Oh my God, like seven minutes and 14 seconds? Like, what?!’ And I’m going, ‘What? Hang on, wait a minute. How do you know that?’”

Winslet, who will next be seen alongside Saoirse Ronan in romance drama Ammonite, said: “It was brilliant and I was very proud of myself and I’ll probably never be able to do it again."

The Oscar-winner said that she feels “very, very lucky” to “learn a whole new skill” as pat of her job.

“That came at the end of four weeks worth of quite intense training and it was in the dive tank, it was in the training tank. But I loved it. We’re very, very lucky as actors that often we have to learn a whole new skill.”

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

A UK release date is yet to be set for Ammonite. Avatar 2 will be released on 21 December 2021.