Kate Winslet says her life was 'horrible and unpleasant' after Titanic's release

12 February 2024 , 11:11

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Kate Winslet looks back on her rise to fame and how life became 'quite unpleasant' following the release of Titanic in 1997

Kate Winslet says being famous "was horrible" and her life turned "quite unpleasant" at the start of her career.

The actress, 48, felt she "had to look a certain way, or be a certain thing" after becoming a household name thanks to the release of Titanic in 1997. Although she admits the fame that came with being in such a huge movie was unwanted, Kate now doesn't see the attention as "a burden".

Kate was just 21 years old when she played the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater, a socialite aboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic, in James Cameron's romance-tragedy epic, turning 22 by the time was big-budget flick hit movie theatres across the globe. Kate bagged an Oscar nomination thanks to her performance in the film alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and went on to become one of the biggest stars in the world.

Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet became huge stars thanks to the success of Titanic in 1997 (20th Century Fox/Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

The actress discusses how fame became 'quite unpleasant' in this month's issue of PORTER (Yulia Gorbachenko/PORTER/NET-A-PORTER.COM)

But the success of Titanic wasn't all sunshine and roses for Kate, with the mum-of-three now revealing being propelled into the spotlight at such a young age wasn't the easiest thing to navigate. "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," she recalls.

Speaking to PORTER magazine, the British star adds: "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'."

Kate Winslet's daughter Mia Threapleton is her mother's double at BAFTA party

However, Kate - who won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Reader in 2009 - has no regrets about her career trajectory. "It's not a burden, any of it," she goes on to tell the publication. "[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."

Kate very almost didn't play Rose as director James Cameron was initially reluctant to cast the Sense and Sensibility actress in the role, instead preferring the likes of Claire Danes and Gwyneth Paltrow. However, Kate pleaded with Cameron - with the director recalling how she told him: ""You don't understand! I am Rose! I don't know why you're even seeing anyone else!"

The success of Titanic put Kate in a comfortable position but the Revolutionary Road star turned down offers to appear in blockbusters in favour of shooting smaller, independent productions. . "Look, I'm not a blockbuster star," the Independent reports Kate as saying in 2009. "Which is why [after Titanic] I went off and made Hideous Kinky and other smaller things. I never saw Titanic as a springboard for bigger films or bigger pay cheques. I knew it could have been that, but I knew it would have destroyed me. I always wanted to be able to say I love my job and never want to be bored by it."

Zoe Delaney