LONDON EVENING STANDARD,

January 21, 1998

Kate Winslet On...

  I chased the role, hassling director James Cameron on the phone for so long that he eventually agreed to let me fly to Los Angeles and read for it. I was cast pre-Oscars, before the Sense And Sensibility nomination, before I became "known" as such, so he was taking quite a chance on me. I think his idea was that I was "probably not right" until quite late in the day.
In Titanic I play an upper-class Philadelphian called Rose DeWitt Bukater unhappily engaged to the super-rich Cal Hockley played by Billy Zane who falls in love with Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack, a young artist in steerage. Rose is a very spirited Edwardian girl who's restricted by society but desperately wants to break out and explore life. When she meets Jack, who won his third-class ticket in a game of poker, he is the first man who has ever shown any interest in her desires or dreams. Of course their love is forbidden and Cal and Rose's mother Ruth, played by Frances Fisher, do their damnedest to keep them apart.
As the boat went down we had to work in deeper and deeper water. I reckon we worked under water about half the time. It was exhausting and cold. Even though we were working in tanks it wasn't any easier. But I'm a bit of a masochist so in a way the cold water suited me. And it was nice to play a more contemporary role after so many period pieces Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy. I don't have a problem with the classics because people haven't really changed. Just because women wore corsets doesn't mean they didn't have thoughts about sex.