James Cameron has said that New Zealand’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is the reason behind his decision to relocate there from the US.

Speaking to Stuff, Cameron – who shot much of the most recent Avatar feature in the southern hemisphere – described being the US under Donald Trump as “like watching a car crash over and over” and said his New Zealand citizenship was “imminent”.

The director further elaborated his reasons in a new interview on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, saying that he made the move “for his sanity”.

He and his wife bought a farm in the country in 2011 and decided post-pandemic to make the move permanent.

“New Zealand had eliminated the virus completely,” he said. “They actually eliminated the virus twice. The third time, when it showed up in a mutated form, it broke through. But fortunately, they already had a 98% vaccination rate.”

He continued: “This is why I love New Zealand. People there are, for the most part, sane – as opposed to the United States, where you had a 62% vaccination rate, and that’s going down, going the wrong direction.

“Where would you rather live? A place that actually believes in science and is sane and where people can work together cohesively to a common goal, or a place where everybody’s at each other’s throats, extremely polarised, turning its back on science and basically would be in utter disarray if another pandemic appears.”

Cameron joins an increasing exodus of film industry celebrities leaving the US, citing Trump’s second term in the White House as a key reason. George Clooney has recently been granted French citizenshipwhich Jim Jarmusch has also announced that he is applying for, while Ellen DeGeneres has moved to the UK and Rosie O’Donnell to Ireland.