Kate Winslet has recalled her “messy” experience of kissing Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, admitting it “was not all it’s cracked up to be”.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, while revisiting the iconic “I’m Flying” scene from the 1997 Oscar-winning film, Winslet explained how the vasts amount of makeup on both actors made for an unpleasant, albeit amusing, kissing experience.
“My god, he’s quite the romancer, isn’t he? No wonder every young girl in the world wanted to be kissed by Leonardo DiCaprio,” Winslet joked, before adding: “It was not all it’s cracked up to be.”
She explained: “We kept doing this kiss, and I’ve got a lot of pale makeup on and I would have to do our makeup checks — on both of us, between takes — and I would end up looking as though I’d been sucking a caramel chocolate bar after each take because his makeup would come off on me.”
Winslet added that DiCaprio looked as though “there was a bit missing from his face” thanks to the residue of her paler cosmetics. “Oh God, it was such a mess,” she said.
The Oscar-winning actress also recalled banging her knee on the railing multiple times and needing a few takes to get everything right.
“This was a nightmare,” she said, rewatching the scene. “Leo couldn’t stop laughing, and we had to reshoot this about four times because [director James Cameron] wanted a very specific light for this, obviously, and the sunsets kept changing where we were.”
Winslet said matters were made worse by the fact that the duo were inaccessible to the makeup team during the shoot.
“This was a section of the ship, it wasn’t part of the actual whole ship set that we had,” she explained. “We had to climb up a ladder to get to it. Hair and makeup couldn’t reach us. Now, what you wouldn’t know because Leo looks completely natural but he had to lie on sunbeds and there’s a lot of fake tan makeup going on.”
Aside from the hassle of shooting the scene, Winslet admitted that it was “quite funny” for her and DiCaprio to be “giggling and covered in each other’s makeup”.
Their efforts evidently paid off, however, as Titanic went on to win 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, and remains one of the highest grossing films of all time.
“I do feel very proud of it, because I feel that it is that film that just keeps giving,” Winslet said. “Whole other generations of people are discovering the film or seeing it for the first time and there’s something extraordinary about that.”
The only drawback, she says, is that she still can’t board a boat without being asked to recreate the “I’m flying” scene. “It does my head in,” she said, adding that she’s asked “every time, without fail.”
Asked if she always obliges the fans who make the request, she said: “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”
Elsewhere, both Winslet and Cameron recently addressed rumours of a rift after filming Titanic.
