Even Kate Winslet knows that her Titanic character, Rose, didn’t need to let go.
The 1997 iconic film’s costars Winslet and Kathy Bates discussed the movie’s iconic scene in which Winslet’s Rose lets go of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack after he’s frozen to death as she sits on a door in the water.
“In one of Cinema’s most tragic love scenes Jack insists that Rose must survive, her heart will go on,” Bates, 69, said while introducing Winslet at the SAG AFTRA Foundation 2nd Annual Patron of the Artists Awards on Thursday, November 9. “He lets go of her hand and sinks into the depth of the Atlantic. And I personally think that there was plenty of room on there!”
When Winslet took the stage, she admitted that there probably was room for both characters to survive. “I completely agree with you on that door,” she said. “He could have fit on it! He could have fit on that door!”
While Winslet sees the potential for an alternate ending to the film, the screenplay had a profound impact on her and DiCaprio to the point where the costars still recite lines from the movie 20 years after its release. “We’re very, very close and sometimes we do quote the odd Titanic line back and forth to each other,” Winslet explained of her former costar in Glamour’s October issue. “Because only we can, and we find it really funny.”
Despite their onscreen chemistry, the costars never had the desire to let their real-life relationship take a turn for the romantic. “For Leo and I, I think it was seven months of very intense work,” Winslet said on ITV’s Lorraine on October 3 of their time on set. “We were both really very young, and luckily — and this is the fortunate thing — we never fancied each other. I know that’s really annoying to hear, I’m sorry, but we really never did.”
