“That was just how things were done in that super low-budget world.”

James Cameron was once asked to deal cocaine to film crew: ‘What do I do with this stuff?’

"That was just how things were done in that super low-budget world."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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January 29, 2026 5:34 p.m. ET

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James Cameron in Paris on Dec. 4, 2025. Credit:

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

- James Cameron worked as a production designer on Roger Corman's 1980 B-movie *Battle Beyond the Stars*.

- On his first day on the job, Cameron said the production manager gave him cocaine and amphetamines.

- The filmmaker said that he was told, "Well, you got to give it out to the crew."

James Cameron's first big job on a movie set came with a surprising catch.

The *Titanic* director remembered becoming a production designer for Roger Corman's 1980 sci-fi B-movie *Battle Beyond the Stars* during an interview with *In Depth with Graham Bensinger*.

Cameron explained that he was promoted after the previous production designer was fired. "He wasn't designing and building sets in time," the *Avatar* filmmaker recalled. "The schedule was horrific, and you're basically laying tracks in front of a speeding train. And they saw that I was a guy that didn't mind staying up all night, and I had a good artistic flair, and I could draw. They had no idea that I had any management skills whatsoever."

James Cameron circa 1985.

Vinnie Zuffante/Getty

The *Terminator* director said that he boarded just two weeks before shooting started. "None of the sets were designed or built," he said. "It's like, 'Okay, I guess I'm jumping into the fire. Okay, yeah, I'll do it.' And they asked me at like 4 o'clock in the morning."

Cameron was surprised when the production manager briefed him on the first day of his promotion and provided him with a couple of illicit substances. "He says, 'Okay, here's your petty cash voucher,'" he recalls. "And here's this and here's that, and here's your swing shift crew list. Here's your day shift crew list. Okay, here's your black beauties. Here's your coke.' And he's just putting all this stuff out on the table."

The *True Lies* filmmaker had no idea what to make of the drugs on the table. "I'm like, 'Wait a minute, what do I do with this stuff?'" he remembered. "I mean, I didn't take drugs. You know, for me, coffee was plenty."

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The production manager explained that the drugs weren't for Cameron. "He said, 'Well, you got to give it out to the crew,'" he recalled. "I'm like, so I just became a dealer, I guess? You know, but that was just how things were done in that super low-budget world. You know, 'will work for coke,' basically. And that was pretty nuts."

'Battle Beyond the Stars'.

Warner/Orion/Kobal/Shutterstock

Cameron quickly delegated the drug-dealing responsibility to a subordinate. "I just gave it all to my assistant art director. I said, 'You deal with that,'" he remembered. "He said, 'Well, I know what to do. It's fine. I'll handle it.'"

The *Aliens* director said that his assistant handled the situation appropriately. "He actually distributed fairly and equitably," he said. "And apparently in that world, you are judged as a production designer or an art director by how fairly you distributed the drugs. I mean, I didn't want to play that game. It wasn't my thing.”

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Watch Cameron's full conversation with Graham Bensinger above.**

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Source: “EW Movie”