James Cameron

You're probably not going to catch writer/director James Cameron working on a small art house feature. His career has been all about writing and directing big budget, super splashy action/adventure movies…and you've probably heard of most of them.

His resume, which includes writing, directing, and editing, is basically just a laundry list of some of the greatest and/or most beloved blockbusters of all time. Aliens? Wrote and directed. Terminator 1 and 2? True Lies? Avatar? Same deal.

Cameron started out majoring in physics at California State University before getting interested in screenwriting. He scored jobs on film crews, and it wasn't too long before he was writing and directing his own films (source).

As you may have noticed, a lot of Cameron's films have a sci-fi bent—which kind of makes sense, given his early interest in physics, right? Of course he's a little geeky.

Titanic might seem like a departure from all that, but not so fast. Even with that film, you might have noticed that Cameron spends a lot of time exploring the mechanics of what happens to the boat—you know, how/why/when it sinks. Viewed from that angle, you could say that Titanic actually kind of fits into Cameron's overall science-y body of work.

There's plenty of geeky science talk about the physics of the boat's sinking—and let's face it, the ocean is as scary/deadly in this film as any alien.

Cameron remained so interested in the whole story of Titanic—and the science behind exploring the wreckage—that he worked with his brother to create new technology for filming it, which is how the documentary Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) came to be (source).

Yup, that's right—Cameron also does documentaries from time to time.

Speaking of Cameron's geek credentials, he's still just as interested in science off-screen. As a committed environmentalist, Cameron has gotten super interested in solar power, even installing panels outside his studios.

Oh, did we forget to mention the studios?

Yeah, he has his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, which was one of the producers of Titanic as well as several of Cameron's other films. Anyway, Cameron is so into solar power that he wants to make the upcoming Avatar sequels the first films that are entirely produced using solar energy (source).

So, yeah—producer, writer, science and technology geek, film innovator, documentarian. Is there anything James Cameron can't do?

Sure, he's so known for having a nasty side that it actually has its own name ("Mij," which is "Jim" backwards) (source).

But really, how many high achievers in film and literature are known for being pussycats? You can't deny the results—and you've got to give Cameron some points for consistently standing up for his beliefs and vision, which included an early commitment to putting women in lead action/adventure roles when others weren't super interested in that kind of thing.