Hello friends! It’s time for a Film Friday Know-It-All: We’re talking cinema’s wettest boy, James Cameron.

“Avatar: The Way of Water,” the hotly anticipated sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time, featuring many characters whose names we can remember and actors whose faces easily materialize in the mind. (A friend recently assured me Sam Worthington is famous, he’s the guy from “Three Billboards” and “Moon”! Until we realized she meant Sam Rockwell. Try to picture Sam Worthington without looking it up. I’m looking at a picture of him right now and it’s big this energy. ) Anyway, I recently saw “Avatar” for the first time in its 3D rerelease and I gotta say: that’s an impressive film. I am excited to look at its sequel.

So who cares about James Cameron? As we have learned over and over again by trying to ask questions about it, normal people who aren’t dedicated listeners to the podcast Blank Check do not know who directed movies. I’d like to take a little time to share about Cameron’s legacy and personality, because I find it very interesting! (And do check out the Blank Check series on his work, which is where I learned a lot of this, if you like podcasts.) Given his first new film in over a decade, and the fact that we’re doing “Titanic” trivia all this month, we thought it was a great time to dig in.

James Cameron directed two of the three highest-grossing movies of all time, “Avatar” and “Titanic.” If that’s not impressive enough, when you look at the top 30, those are two of the only three films that aren’t remakes, sequels, or later entries in franchises. (The other one is “Frozen”! ) Perhaps even more notable: he’s only made nine feature-length films. Besides the aforementioned, he made the first two “Terminator” movies, “Aliens” (but not “Alien”), “True Lies,” “The Abyss,” and of course, his breakout first film, “Piranha II: The Spawning.”

Cameron loves underwater. This shows up in his films — “The Abyss,” “Titanic,” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” all heavily feature underwater filming. But it’s also his personal passion. He made two documentaries about undersea diving as he explored the technology he had used to film the real-life wreck of the Titanic. He personally invented an underwater camera dolly to get the shots he wanted. He completed the first solo dive into the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, and discovered several new species.

Cameron is not the easiest guy to work with. The actors on his first underwater film, “The Abyss,” describe the process as “hairy” and “intolerable” as they did hours-long shoots in a lightless tank. The crew made shirts reading “Life’s abyss and then you die.” Cameron says his autocratic directorial style is about safety (and no one has ever been seriously injured on one of his sets, despite doing very dangerous stuff), but he’s famous for his temper and pushing the limits of union rules. Famously, the crew on “Aliens,” accustomed to working with the much more chill Ridley Scott on “Alien” and protected by British labor laws, almost mutinied. They also made pointed t-shirts about him. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s joke about his marriage to Kathryn Bigelow at the 2013 Golden Globes remains one of the all-timers. (Look how shocked Jessica Chastain is!) As far as I can tell he has stayed on the “an angry jerk” side of the jerk-abuser line, but I’m not gonna pretend the guy is all smiles and rainbows.

Here are some other, more fun facts about James Cameron: He put up a million dollars to rescue Guillermo del Toro’s father from kidnappers. He directed a music video for Bill Paxton’s new wave band. He co-created “Dark Angel,” the Jessica Alba TV show from the 2000s. He pitched the idea of an “Alien” sequel by writing “Alien” on a chalkboard, then adding an “S,” then making the “S” into a dollar sign. Since 2000, he’s been married to Suzy Amis, who plays Rose’s granddaughter in “Titanic,” which really casts her closing scenes looking longingly at underwater diving obsessive Brock Lovett in a different light.

Anyway! I really need “Avatar: The Way of Water” to do well because I bet on it big in Vulture’s Movie Game. Go see it! And go play “Titanic” Trivia!