Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet held breath for over 5 minutes while filming 'Avatar 2'

American actors Sigourney Weaver and Kate Winslet were tasked with quite the challenge while filming the upcoming 'Avatar' sequels.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, filmmaker James Cameron opened up about how the film's stars had to hold their breath for long periods of time, often over five minutes, while shooting the sequels to the popular 2009 film.

According to the outlet, 'Avatar 2' and 'Avatar 3' are set widely in and around the ocean, and Cameron, didn't want to utilize filmmaking techniques that mimic filming underwater, which he described as "dry for wet."

"I said, 'It's not going to work. It's not going to look real.' I even let them run a test, where we captured dry for wet, and then we captured in water, a crude level of our in-water capture. And it wasn't even close," he explained.

So, in order to film underwater accurately as Cameron had envisioned many of the cast members prepared by getting scuba-certified.

When it came time for them to film, EW reported that each actor also had to train with professional divers to learn how to free dive, holding their breath on their own for numerous minutes at once, as air bubbles and scuba technology would have affected part of capturing the stars' performances.

According to Cameron, Weaver was able to "easily" hold her breath for six-and-a-half minutes, while Winslet, "blew everybody away when she did a seven-and-a-half-minute breath hold."

In the follow-up feature of 'Avatar', Weaver returns in a secretive new role after her character died in the first film. Meanwhile, Winslet re-teams with Cameron after working together on 'Titanic' to play a mysterious character named Ronal.

The 2009 original film broke records upon release and currently sits as the No. 1 highest-grossing movie of all time, without adjusting for inflation. 'Avatar' also received nine Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, with three total wins.

Now owned by Disney following the company's acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019, the long-delayed 'Avatar' sequel is currently slated for a December 16, 2022, release date. A third film is expected to debut in 2024, a fourth in 2026 and a fifth in 2028.

As per People magazine, producer Jon Landau said the new movie will tell a "story about family, and the lengths parents will go through to keep that family together and keep them safe," explaining that much of the second film follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana)'s kids.

"What we are doing now, from a story standpoint and a world standpoint, is on a much larger scale. That's both exciting and challenging. We are putting much more detail, first and foremost, into the performances of the cast, but we're putting much more detail and diversity into the world that we are creating," said Landau.

( With inputs from ANI )

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