James Cameron Calls Amy Poehler’s Golden Globes Joke About His Marriage “Ignorant” & “Went Too Far”

James Cameron, the director behind Avatar: Fire and Ash, is opening up about a joke from the 2013 Golden Globes that he says still bothers him.

The comment was made by Amy Poehler during the awards show when Cameron’s ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, was nominated for Best Director for Zero Dark Thirty. Poehler quipped, “But when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron.” The remark got a big laugh from the audience at the time.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Cameron described the joke as “an ignorant dig” and said it went too far. “I’m pretty thick-skinned, and happy to be the butt of a good-natured joke, but that went too far,” he said, adding that the Golden Globes should be about celebrating filmmakers, not roasting them.

Cameron said it wasn’t just the joke itself but how the audience reacted that stung. “The fact that people found it funny shows exactly what they think of me, even though they have no idea who I am or how I work,” he explained.

Cameron has long had a reputation for being a demanding director. In Rebecca Keegan’s 2009 biography, The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron, he described the crew on his 1986 film Aliens as “lazy, insolent, and arrogant” and admitted that they often despised each other on set. His 1989 sci-fi film The Abyss even inspired crew members to wear T-shirts that read, “You can’t scare me, I work for Jim Cameron.”

Despite this, some collaborators praise Cameron’s exacting standards. Kate Winslet, who worked with him again on Avatar: The Way of Water, said in 2022, “A chef is never gonna send a great dish out to the table if he’s not happy with that plate.” She also called reading his sequel script a “phenomenal experience” and said Cameron is a true perfectionist.

Cameron’s comments show that while he can handle criticism, there are limits to what he considers acceptable humor, especially when it involves his personal life.

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