‘It Wasn’t Even A…’: Kate Winslet Shares New Anecdote About Iconic Titanic ‘Door’ Scene With Leonardo DiCaprio
Kate Winslet claims in a recent interview that the “door” from the legendary Titanic “door” scene may not have been a door at all. For many fans, it has been a burning question since the movie came out: Couldn’t both, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Winslet) have clung on to the wooden piece and floated till help came?
Focusing on the debate, in her recent appearance on the Australian show The Project, to promote her biopic Lee, Winslet, however, stated that what the fans describe as a ‘door’ was in fact the broken piece of a banister from the ship. She had a sense that the interviewer would definitely ask the door question, which, as she explained, has been ubiquitous in popular culture after the movie appeared in 1997.
She explained that she had encountered these questions many times and was somewhat surprised that people were wrong and called it a door. The Oscar winner said, “I thought, ‘He’s busting out the Titanic question and next he’s gonna ask me about the door.’ I absolutely knew it. But, you know, what I will say that’s really interesting is people keep referring to it as a door. It actually wasn’t even a door.”
The contentious question of whether both Jack and Rose could fit on the piece of debris instead of sinking with the Titanic has been entertaining audiences for many years. James Cameron, Titanic’s director, even ordered scientific research on this issue, using stuntmen to model four different situations, looking for different positions of the debris and trying to figure out if there were ways both characters could have floated on it. But his conclusions led him to believe, Jack wouldn’t do anything too experimental at that moment to risk Rose’s safety.
Winstel further added, “It’s a piece of banister, like stairway or something, that had broken off. Who knows if [DiCaprio] could’ve [fit] on there or not. Honestly, I don’t have any insights here that anyone else hasn’t already tried to figure out.”
Earlier this year, Kate Winslet jokingly stated that Leonardo DiCaprio is most likely over the whole ‘door’ question phase and even suggested that he probably has more like ‘PTSD’ from being asked so many questions regarding the scene. Winslet was also able to provide some additional behind-the-scenes details to Josh Horowitz, such as the fact that the famous scene was shot in a tank with waist-high water.
The cast and crew had to cope with the continuous flow of rushing water sound that lasted during the entire filming. As she said, the level of the water was so low that between the takes, she was able to stand up and walk towards the edge of the tank, climb onto the banister piece again to resume filming.
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