‘Avatar: The Way of Water’: Sam Worthington opens up on ‘hardest’ shoot ever

After much anticipation, Avatar: The Way of Water is coming to theatres on December 16.

Ahead of its release, movie star Sam Worthington has shared that filming film’s underwater scenes were his biggest challenge to date.

Sam, who will be reprising his character Jake Sully in the much awaited sequel, revealed that he had to learn to 'free dive' - deep water diving without scuba gear- for the sequel/

In the James Cameron directorial, Sam lives on the alien moon Pandora and shares four kids with Na'vi warrior Neytri (played by Zoe Saldaña).

The Clash of the Titans actor, 46, described his intense feelings about trying to act underwater in the movie.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. You’re dealing with the restrictions of freediving, the constraints of motion capture underwater, and you’re trying to keep an emotional journey going while you’re innately struggling with the fear of dying,” he said.

Sam further shared, “There's a very emotional scene between me and [my son in the film]. But we are thirty feet underwater and running out of oxygen.”

“You've got to forget to forget that you're deep down, that you're depleting all your oxygen, and just play this emotional scene between a father and a son,” said the actor.

Besides Sam, Avatar: The Way of Water cast including Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver – also received training to free-dive for over six minutes at time inside a 900,000-gallon tank in Manhattan Beach, CA.

The Avatar sequel comes over a decade after the original film initially released theaters in 2009.