James Cameron On His "Hubristic" "I'm The King Of The World" Oscars Speech For 'Titanic': "It's Too Self-Referential"

At the 1998 Academy AwardsJames Cameron‘s “Titanic” won, and won a lot. Cameron’s film won 11 Oscars total during the ceremony, including Best Picture. But The Independent reports that, in a new oral history about “Titanic” for THR, Cameron regrets the speech he gave for his Best Director victory, where he recited one of the film’s most iconic lines, “I’m the kind of the world!” According to Cameron, he realized shortly after getting backstage afterward that he had made a “hubristic” mistake.

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“I’ll tell you exactly when I first realized it [was going to be a problem],” Cameron told THR. “When I walked backstage and Warren Beatty had this look on his face like, ‘What the f*ck did you just do?’ He was just looking at me like, ‘You poor boob, what the f*ck did you just do?’” And I went, ‘Oh, was that not cool? OK.’” Beatty wasn’t the only one flummoxed by Cameron’s speech: Oscar viewers that year cited it as a poor move on the director’s part.

But Cameron has reflected on the speech’s poor form already. “I mean, obviously I’ve analysed that,” Cameron continued. “My wife at the time, Linda [Hamilton], had said, ‘Well, if you’re going to quote a line from the movie, then quote it with gusto.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I can do that.’” But no one saw Cameron’s self-referential quote as gusto at the time. Instead, it came off as extremely arrogant, as if everyone in the room wanted him to win the award, which obviously wasn’t the case.

Cameron recognizes his error now. “What I realised is, the problem with [the ‘king of the world’ speech] is that it’s too self-referential and seen as hubristic,” Cameron said. “Not just the actual sort of semiotics of, ‘I’m the king of the world,’ but the scenario of quoting your own movie as if every single person in the audience is a big fan, because there were a lot of people in that audience that did not vote for “Titanic.” You can’t make the assumption that because you’re winning, you’ve won by some vast landslide.”

Cameron isn’t up for Best Director this year for “Avatar: The Way Of Water.” But his latest mega-blockbuster is up for Best Picture. No one expects it to win, but if it does, it’s safe to predict that Cameron will have a more muted approach than his 1998 Best Director speech. The 95th Academy Awards happen this Sunday.