Titanic Director: 'Short People' Intentionally Cast

Acclaimed director James Cameron said he and his team cast "short people" as extras in "Titanic" to make the set of the film look bigger. 

Cameron made the remarks during an interview with the Los Angeles Times while reflecting on the making of the "Titanic," which was the most expensive film of its time. 

The film's massive costs were primarily due to the intricate engineering and extensive resources required for the creation of exceptionally large sets and sequences.

"The scale of everything was beyond anything we could imagine in terms of our prior experience," Cameron said. "At the time we thought, Wow, there's no way this movie could ever make its money back. It's just impossible. Well, guess what?"

To save $750,000, producer Jon Landau plans were scrapped for a third set angled at 3 degrees. Instead, the team used two existing sets: one for pre-iceberg scenes and another tilted at 6 degrees to depict the ship sinking.

Further, in efforts to ensure the ship maintained its massive appearance, they strategized casting. 

"We only cast short extras so it made our set look bigger," Cameron said. "Anybody above 5-foot-8, we didn't cast them. It's like we got an extra million dollars of value out of casting."

Cameron added that, if the studio "had their own way" they would have "cut the entire ship sinking." 

"The smartest thing we did was do the sinking last," he said. "It wasn't because of strategy — it was simply because you sink the set last because otherwise it doesn't look so good the next morning when you bring it back up."

"Titanic," released on Dec. 19, 1997, held the title of the highest-grossing film until Cameron beat his record with "Avatar" in 2009. In an interview with The New York Times in 2022,he said he did not hesitate to shut down 20th Century Fox executives when they tried to battle him over key sequences in "Avatar."

Cameron said the studio wanted him to shorten the film and trim the movie's flying sequences, but he shrugged the requests off by reminding the execs that he directed "Titanic," which paid for a large portion of the 20th Century Fox studio lot.

"I think I felt, at the time, that we clashed over certain things," Cameron said. "For example, the studio felt that the film should be shorter and that there was too much flying around on the ikran — what the humans call the banshees.

"Well, it turns out that's what the audience loved the most, in terms of our exit polling and data gathering. And that's a place where I just drew a line in the sand and said, 'You know what? I made "Titanic." This building that we're meeting in right now? This new half-billion dollar complex on your lot? "Titanic" paid for that, so I get to do this.'"

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