Kate Winslet addresses feud rumors with ‘Titanic’ director James Cameron
Her heart will go on.
Kate Winslet, 48, is setting the record straight about her rumored feud with James Cameron.
“There’s a part of me that feels almost sad that stupid, speculative ‘Titanic’ stuff at the time overshadowed the actual relationship I have with him. He knows I will be up for anything. Any challenge, any piece of direction you give me? I’ll try it,” Winslet told Variety in an interview published Wednesday.
Cameron told the outlet, “There was never a rift between us. She had a little postpartum depression when she let go of Rose. She and I have talked about the fact that she goes really, really deep, and her characters leave a lasting, sometimes dramatic impression on her.”
The feud rumors stemmed from comments Winslet made in a Rolling Stone interview in 1998, three months after “Titanic’s” release. She said, “I would only work for Jim Cameron again for a lot of money.”
“Titanic” launched Winslet to superstardom, but it was a bumpy road, as she also got many scathing remarks about her body.
“I actually felt a bit beaten up by it, truth be told,” she told Variety. “I had a lovely family, but all my family saw is, ‘My God, Kate’s got work in a really big film.’ One doesn’t want to turn around to your mum and dad and say, ‘It’s really hard, actually.’”
Winslet has previously revealed that she got called “fat” during that hit movie’s heyday, and that she found media comments to be “bullying” and “borderline abusive.”
Winslet said that the Met Gala this year made her happy to see how society has progressed since her “Titanic” days.
“I really was smiling, because every single image of the women on the red carpet, every woman is sharing their body in the way they want to, on their terms,” she told Variety. “And knowing they can do that safely, because the media is not going to criticize them. And that is completely different from the way it used to be in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002.”
Regarding her body being a topic of conversation, she said, “This s–t went on for years.”
Cameron told the outlet, “The admiration is one thing, but the trolling is another thing. People body-shaming her, dissing her. It was right at the advent of the internet coming into its own.”
To this day, Winslet is friends with her “Titanic” leading partner, Leonardo DiCaprio, and reunited with him in 2008’s “Revolutionary Road.” She’s also reunited with Cameron for his “Avatar” franchise, in 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
More recently, Winslet led the 2021 HBO show “Mare of Easttown,” and told Variety she “probably” would play Mare again.
“You just wanted to cozy up on the couch with her and watch some s–t TV and eat cheese balls. It was probably quite nice for audiences to see an actress typically known for being a leading lady in films become completely undone,” she said of playing the character.
“Playing her was like that: I felt refreshed and rejuvenated by how disgusting she was every single day. And she was warm and funny, and her ability to see everyone was f–king gorgeous.”
HBO’s head of dramatic series, Francesca Orsi, meanwhile, told the outlet that there have been “discussions” about a Season 2.
“But it did feel too soon … While there’s nothing in the works, we are having early discussions about whether it might be time to start thinking of building something,” Orsi explained. “We might be willing to figure out with Mare, years later, picking her up — not on the heels of where she ended, but there have been years for the character that have passed. Who is she now?”