Although Kate Winslet gained a great deal of popularity as a result of Titanic, there are aspects of the film that she could have done without.
The Regime actress, who is 48 years old, gave an interview to PORTER for the most recent cover story of the magazine. In the interview, she recalled the unease she had over her celebrity after the publication of James Cameron’s romance-tragedy epic in 1997.
“I felt like I had to look a certain way, or be a certain thing, and because media intrusion was so significant at that time, my life was quite unpleasant,” Winslet said.
After that, she said, “Journalists would often remark, ‘After Titanic, you could have done anything, but you decided to do these minor things.’… I responded by saying, “Yeah, you can bet your life that I did!” Because, you guessed it, becoming famous was a terrible experience.'”
The recipient of the Academy Award said, “It’s not a burden, any of it,” despite the fact that there were some disagreeable parts.
As she proceeded, she joked, “The only time I am like, ‘Oh God, hide,’ is if we are on a boat somewhere.” “[Titanic] continues to bring people enormous amounts of joy,” she said.
There have been other instances in which Winslet has discussed her popularity after the release of Titanic. She recounted going “into self-protective mode right away” following her breakthrough co-lead performance in the film, since she was “bullied” by the media in the United Kingdom, on an episode of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast that was broadcast in 2021.
“It was like night and day from one day to the next,” she stated in reference to her rapid, unexpected stardom. “Also, I was subject to quite a lot of also personal physical scrutiny, and criticized quite a lot — the British press were actually quite unkind to me.”
According to Winslet, “If I’m being completely honest, I felt quite bullied.” “I remember thinking, ‘Okay, well, this is terrible, and I hope it passes,'” “I remember thinking that.” And there is no doubt that it was successful, but it also opened my eyes to the fact that if that was what it meant to be famous, then I was not prepared to be famous, many thanks. In no uncertain terms, no.”
In more recent times, Winslet has commented on her time spent working on the set of Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio, who played her on-screen love interest. (Over the course of their friendship, the two would continue to be very close friends.)
“As soon as I began working with Leo, we were able to establish our own rhythm,” I said. “And it’s amazing to kind of look back and think about it all over again,” she said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, which was being shown in advance of the re-release of the picture in 4K Ultra HD.
“He was a complete and utter tangle of long, slender, and clumsy limbs. As she went on, she said, “And he was just very free with himself, and he had this effervescent energy that was really magnetic.” ‘Oh, this is going to be a lot of fun,’ I recalled thinking at the time. There is no doubt that we are going to get along.'”
“And we accomplished it in a really authentic way. Winslet continued by saying, “We just really did.”