Hold on to Dreams
For if Dreams Die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Titanic Premiere Pictures (LA and London)
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An excerpt from Oh, You Kate! By RON GIVENS, Daily News Staff Writer January 11, 1998 Which brings us to Rose in "Titanic." Cameron's treatment for the movie, she says, "moved me to tears. It came the closest to what I believe love really must be about. I mean, who knows what love is at the end of the day — where does it come from and how do you describe what it is and how you feel — but to me, love is being with a person whom you are a) completely yourself with, but also b) someone who helps you to realize who you are as a human being." So, "Titanic" was a labor of love for Winslet, with a heavy emphasis on labor. The seven months of shooting were grueling — up to 20 hours a day in water down to 50-something degrees. "The physical demands were quite extraordinary and absolutely exhausting at times," she says, "but I never feel as though I've done my job properly unless I walk away feeling emotionally and physically absolutely drained and dead, as if I can't give any more." For some, the love scenes with DiCaprio, moviedom's leading heartthrob, would have been fair compensation. But this didn't mean as much to Winslet as it would to most teenage girls. "He is, to me, one of the greatest actors of our generation, and I find that incredibly exciting. I believe there are very few actors in the world who are really, genuinely, gifted from God and can just do it, couldn't possibly be bad, even if they tried." Nevertheless, the romantic spark onscreen did not translate into a romantic spark offscreen. "We were really like brother and sister. There was never any of that 'I fancy you, do you fancy me?' Never. Never any kind of flirting that went on. I mean, I [thought] I was going to fall over backward, going 'I can't possibly work with this man, I've fallen in love with him,' but that never happened. When I actually met him, I went, 'What an excellent bloke. Really, really excellent guy.' " So, what was it like to kiss him? "We'd just tease each other and call each other nasty names and comment on how bad each other's breath was." And the — literally steamy — love scene in the car in the hold of the ship? "We were ridiculously uncomfortable. I can't tell you. It was a very small, confined space. It was very hot. I had all of his makeup on me, he had all of my makeup on him. Our legs were in this big old tangled mess. I felt I was putting my back out, the angle I was lying at. And Leo was kind of crushing my arm, making it go dead. "At that point, we knew each other so well that the fact that I was lying skin-to-skin with Leonardo DiCaprio was not something that I was thinking about. It really was like a member of my family. Honestly. Genuinely." From a theater seat, the passion between Winslet and DiCaprio doesn't seem like a family affair. Perhaps that's why they call it acting. |
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