Kate Winslet’s portrayal of Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron’s Titanic catapulted her to international fame, cementing her status as one of Hollywood’s most beloved leading ladies. However, amidst the acclaim, there are aspects of the film that Winslet herself may have preferred to leave behind.
The 48-year-old star of “The Regime” candidly shared her feelings about fame with PORTER magazine for their latest cover story. Reflecting on her experience after the release of James Cameron’s 1997 romance-tragedy epic, Titanic, she recalled feeling uncomfortable with her newfound celebrity status. Kate said,
“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.”
“Journalists would always say, ‘After Titanic, you could have done anything and yet you chose to do these small things’ … and I was like, ‘Yeah, you bet your life I did! Because, guess what, being famous was horrible.'”
“It’s not a burden, any of it,” asserted the Academy Award winner, acknowledging the challenges while embracing the entirety of her journey. She continued to say,
“[Titanic] continues to bring people huge amounts of joy. The only time I am like, ‘Oh God, hide,’ is if we are on a boat somewhere.”
During a 2021 episode of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Winslet revisited her post-Titanic fame, revealing that she immediately went “into self-protective mode” due to feeling “bullied” by the U.K. media.
Concerning the sudden fame, Kate said,
“It was like night and day from one day to the next. 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.”
“I felt quite bullied, if I’m honest. I remember just thinking, ‘Okay, well, this is horrible and I hope it passes.’ And it did definitely pass but it also made me realize that if that’s what being famous was, I was not ready to be famous, thank you. No, definitely not.”
More recently, Kate Winslet reflected on her experience working with her onscreen love interest, Leonardo DiCaprio, on the set of Titanic. Despite the challenges of filming, the two forged a strong bond that has endured over the years, evolving into a close friendship.
Winslet expressed reflecting on her collaboration with DiCaprio as they prepared for the re-release of the film in 4K Ultra HD-
“Once I started working with Leo, we were able to kind of find our own rhythm. And it’s amazing to kind of look back and think about it all over again.”
“He was this kind of mess of long, skinny, uncoordinated limbs. And he was just very free with himself, and he had this effervescent energy that was really magnetic. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, this is gonna be fun. We’re definitely gonna get along.'”
“And we just really did. We just really did.”