Titanic: the turning point in Kate Winslet’s career
With a filmography of decadent period dramas and independent classics under her belt, Academy-Award-winning English actor Kate Winslet is adored across the pond. The film star experienced a career move that every actor dreams of when she was cast as Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic, one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
Director Cameron adds to this career fairytale by revealing the moment he saw Winslet, noticing that the young star “had the thing that you look for”. Cameron went on to explain that he saw “a quality in her face, in her eyes” and that he “just knew people would be ready to go the distance with her”. Next thing Winslet knew, she was starring alongside Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio in an epic disaster romance with a $200 million budget, making it the most expensive movie at the time.
Even Winslet’s first appearance in the film is magical. The character pulls up to the RMS Titanic in a cart, lifted out by an unseen hand at a high angle. Once she steps out of the cart, the camera swiftly moves down to chart her movement and appearance, landing at a lower angle to frame Winslet’s striking features just as she lifts her head up to observe the ship magnificently. It’s the film entrance that any 21-year-old actor who just landed her leading role in a high-budget drama would dream of gracing the screen with.
Winslet became a part of Hollywood history as Titanic broke box office records and became the first movie to make $1 billion through revenue. Cameron’s film was then nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 11, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, aligning with Ben-Hur, released in 1958, for the most Oscars won by a single film. Winslet received the Oscar nomination for ‘Best Leading Actress’ for her performance as Rose, making her the tenth youngest nominee for the award in Oscar history.
Despite the fairytale demeanour and immense success this career move provided, the actor felt uncertain about her status in acting following Titanic. “I was playing an American for the first time. And working with Leo, who I’d seen in [What’s Eating] Gilbert Grape and Basketball Diaries,” she said during a roundtable for the Los Angeles Times. “So it was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m Kate from Reading.'”
“I was the overweight girl who would always be at the end of the line,” she added. “And because my name was a W, sometimes I wouldn’t even get in the door of the audition because they’d run out of time before the Ws. And I was in Titanic. It’s mad.”
These insecurities festered as the spotlight intensified as Winslet had to adapt from the smaller British period pieces she was used to and learn to get comfortable with Hollywood’s glamorous landscape. “I was scared of Hollywood. A big, scary place, where everyone had to be thin and look a certain way,” Winslet confessed. “And I knew that I did not look that way or feel like I fit there, so if I was ever going to belong, I had to earn my place. And to me, I hadn’t earned it. Titanic might have been a fluke.”
She added: “I do believe that was a huge turning point in my career because from then on, people suddenly went, ‘Oh, she can do that?!'”
When thinking about her next onscreen appearance following a monumental one such as Titanic, Winslet opted for a psychological thriller called Holy Smoke!, a film which saw her play a manipulative and cold woman. This is a part the actor hoped would showcase versatility and ambition, reading as a clear-cut difference to Rose’s persona. Winslet’s work on Jane Campion’s drama involved perfecting an Australian accent, performing graphic sex scenes with co-star Harvey Keitel and acting out a scene where her character urinates on herself.
Following this, the actor became determined to avoid being typecast in historical dramas, scouting out contemporary settings and narratives. These attentive career choices have led Winslet to hold seven Academy Award nominations, with one win, alongside other prestigious accolades. In 2014, the star received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, showcasing how the initial assumptions of her career being over were far from the truth.