Kate Winslet Was “Genuinely Frightened” Of James Cameron While Filming Titanic

Before Megan Fox almost got blacklisted from Hollywood for her comments on Michael Bay – the director of her breakout film, Transformers – Kate Winslet publicly spoke about her bad experience working with the Titanic (1997) director, James Cameron. It sparked a public rift for a while. Somewhere along the way, the latter also complained about the “spoiled punk” behavior of the former’s leading man, Leonardo DiCaprio.

In 2022, Winslet and Cameron reunited for Avatar: The Way of the Water, where they had seemingly put their tumultuous past behind them. Around that time, the British actress reflected on the things she’d said about the filmmaker – who also feuded with Josh Brolin over the blockbuster franchise. Here’s a closer look at their relationship, as well as what Cameron has said about Winslet’s negative claims.

Kate Winslet Was “Frightened” By James Cameron’s Directing Methods

In February 2023, Winslet told MiNDFOOD that Cameron was “a really tough nut to crack” and that “there were times [she] was genuinely frightened of him.” The Ammonite star first criticized the Terminator creator in 1998 after she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance in Titanic. Back then, she cited “related harrowing near-drownings, and lots and lots of yelling” from the director during an interview with the L.A. Times.

Aside from tensions with Cameron, Winslet admitted that her life became “horrible” after Titanic. “[Young women now] know how to use their voice. I felt like [in the aftermath of Titanic] I had to look a certain way,” she explained, “or be a certain thing, and because media intrusion was so significant at that time, my life was quite unpleasant.” It’s why she chose to take smaller parts afterward.

“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 fu–ing life I did! Because, guess what, being famous was horrible,’” Winslet said of her success at age 22. “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.”

James Cameron Said Kate Winslet Should “Get Over” Her Feelings About His Directing Style

When Cameron was asked about Winslet’s complaints about him in 2012, he said: “I have to cut her some slack on that. A good part of the success of the film was because of their great work and so now they’ve had this sort of sense that there was a long shadow they had to escape from, so I understand her needing to distance herself from it.”

He continued: “It’s O.K. You can relax now. You can unclench… I said I understood [her] response, I didn’t necessarily agree with it.” That same year, Winslet also clarified her comments about the director, saying that “yes, he lost his temper, but he only ever lost his temper for really, really good reasons.”

Speaking to MiNDFOOD, she also reflected: “Sometimes, looking back, it’s easy to see why people are the way they are, even if, at the time, you just can’t fathom them. In essence, you just haven’t had the life experience that can put you in their shoes.” Still, in 1998, Cameron admitted that shooting Titanic was really tough.

“Did Kate mention that they were really there for each other?” he told Rolling Stone at that time. “On a long shoot, especially as you get into, like, month five, you’re just in a siege.” Here’s a list of the movie’s Oscar wins and nominations that year:

Kate Winslet’s Experience With James Cameron On Avatar Was “So Far Apart” From Titanic

Speaking about his reunion with Winslet for Avatar 2, Cameron revealed: “Kate and I have been looking for something to do together for 20 years, since our collaboration on Titanic, which was one of the most rewarding of my career.” The Sense and Sensibility alum also said that “she’s “a different person now, and Jim certainly is.”

When asked about her experience filming the 2022 blockbuster, Winslet said it was “so far apart” from shooting Titanic. “You couldn’t compare the two. The two films are so different,” she told EW back then. “Literally, the only common thread is there’s water in both of them, but water that is there for different reasons, behaves in totally different ways. These experiences were so far apart.”

She went on to admit that age may also be a factor for the contrast. “I turned 21 on that shoot,” Winslet said of Titanic. “I am now 47 years old. It’s a very, very, very long time ago. Jim, as a director, as a person, you know, we are just both different, older, have hopefully learned a lot more in terms of how to tell stories and be creative contributors and collaborators.”

Source: NewsFinale