Kate Winslet is reflecting on her shot to stardom after starring in Titanic.
The 1997 film directed by James Cameron became a box-office hit and made Winslet and her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio megastars. However, the added attention Winslet received from the film was not something she was prepared for.
“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 told Porter Magazine.
After a pause, she continued, “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 f***in’ life I did! Because, guess what, being famous was horrible.’”
Winslet was only 22 when Titanic with the star, adding, “I was grateful, of course. I was in my early twenties, and I was able to get a flat. But I didn’t want to be followed literally feeding the ducks.”
At 48 years old now, Winslet says the word fame is “ridiculous” and doesn’t consider it a “burden” anymore.
“[Titanic] continues to bring people huge amounts of joy,” she notes. “The only time I am like, ‘Oh god, hide’, is if we are on a boat somewhere.”
Winslet has been open about her struggles with the media in her 20s, which made her self-conscious about her body. In an interview published by Vogue in September 2023, Winslet talked about why she had to be brave to film a topless scene for the film Lee.
“I had to be really f*cking brave about letting my body be its softest version of itself and not hiding from that,” she told the publication.
She said it all “stems from having been subjected to the most awful scrutiny and judgment, and, actually, I would go so far as to say bullying, from mainstream media when I was in my 20s.”
