For over two decades, fans of ‘Titanic’ have debated whether Jack could have squeezed onto the floating door alongside Rose during the film’s dramatic climax. While that debate may never be settled, actress Kate Winslet recently offered a new twist during an interview on the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast.
Winslet revealed that the filming of that iconic scene was far from epic, taking place in a rather shallow water tank. ‘That was quite an awkward tank, that one, because – to burst a bubble, it was waist-height, that tank,’ Winslet explained. ‘Leo is, I’m afraid, kneeling down on the bottom of the tank.’
The shallow depth of the tank led to some humorous, albeit slightly embarrassing, anecdotes. Winslet recalled how she would frequently take bathroom breaks during filming, even though it meant getting out of the tank and back onto the door. ‘I was regularly like, ‘Can I just go for a pee?’… I’d get up, get off the door, walk to the edge of the tank that was 20 feet away, and I’d literally have to fling my leg over and climb out of the tank and go for a pee, and then come back and crawl back on the door again. I know, it’s terrible to admit these things.’
The constant recirculation of the tank water also presented a major challenge: audio issues. The sound of the water was so pervasive that the entire final 22 minutes of the film had to be re-recorded. ‘Which, let me tell you, everybody, means that the last 22 minutes of that movie are entirely looped. Everything… completely looped the whole thing. I promise you, because you could hear this water noise the whole time,’ Winslet explained.
Despite revealing these behind-the-scenes secrets, Winslet expressed some apprehension about disclosing so much about the film. After all, she missed several opportunities to see ‘Titanic’ after its initial release due to her fear of the water.
While we may never know if Jack could have survived, at least we now know that Leo’s ‘kicking’ was likely more of a ‘knee-ing’ during those crucial final moments.
