Kate Winslet's Titanic Diary
A brief summary.
December 7, 1995, Los Angeles.
Today I met [director] James Cameron. Even though I haven't read for him yet,
he showed me a model of the Titanic and how they were going to do the
special effects shots by using a pen which is actually a tiny camera..
The story is incredible, horrible. One lifeboat only just missed
landing on top of another. Some were sent out with 11 people on them
and yet so many people drowned. The character he’s considering me for is
called Rose Dewitt Bukater, a 17-year-old from Philadelphia who is about to
marry a man she can’t love. She’s on this ship, feeling as if she is
about to be condemned for life, only to find true love on board the Titanic...
December 27, 1995, family Christmas, Reading, England.
I’ve finished reading the treatment for Titanic. My God ! I just saw
True Lies and The Abyss: amazing. One of Jim’s triumphs is that, in
spite of the action, I really, really cared about those people.
I wanted
to know what happened in the rest of their lives.
I want this part.
January 15, 1996, London.
Leonardo DiCaprio is being mentioned to play Jack[a boy from steerage
Rose falls in love with]! He is the actor of the century after what
he did in [What’s Eating] Gilbert Grape.
February 26, 1996, Los Angeles.
My first proper screen test. For Jude and Sense and Sensibility and
Hamlet I’d done a lot of auditions and reading and being put onto a
video tape. But a proper Hollywood screen test! I arrived in the morning
and it took an entire day, with hair, costume, make-up, on a sort of
set that they’d built up, really working the scenes and doing dialogue
to the camera. I think it went okay. My fingers are very tightly crossed.
September 8, Interstate 5 South Freeway, heading to Mexico and the set of Titanic.
I'm in a car with this great driver called Patrick on the way to Mexico.
We've been drinking iceblended mochas from Starbucks and listening to
the blues. It's a beautiful day, and this is a beautiful drive. The sea
is to my right and there isn't a whisper of a cloud in the sky. The cigar
Patrick is smoking is huge and smells divine.
September 9, Rosarito, Mexico.
I'm on my little balcony. All I can hear is the sea and the chug of a
little boat going to catch lobsters. The rooms where we are living are
really nice, airy and clean, although nearer to Christmas they'll all
be blacked out because from then on we'll be doing night shoots and
sleeping by day.
September 16, Rosarito
No sleep. This is it: day one of shooting Titanic. I'm thinking in
American. Hair and make-up done, and cossie on. My life is not my own
and probably never will be- and that's Rose talking. Spoke to Mam and Dad
this morning from my little bed; it was 4am and strange, hot and still.
October 15, Rosarito
My dress is dryving me bloody bonkers. Storywise, from the point of the
ship hits the iceberg, I'm in the same dress till the end of the film.
It's layers and layers of chiffon and layers and layers of pain in the arse.
It's supposed to trail behind me in the water like a big long snail, but
instead it keeps wrapping itself around my legs and tripping me up in
the middle of shots which is driving us all mad. Jim had a brillant idea.
Scissors. How satisfying. Now I look like Bo Peep in just the top of the dress
and my bloomers. Fine for close-ups but not exactly glamourous, but who
cares. Leo is finding this highly amusing. He would. He's wearing a suit.
August 22, 1997, Los Angeles.
This is too weird for words. One year ago exactly to this day, I was
on a plane to LA to start shooting Titanic. I’m still shooting it.
Today Leo and I were Jack and Rose once more, shooting and insert,
running down a corridor looking wet and bedraggled on the Twentieth
Century Fox lot. It was like looking at a ghost when I looked in the
mirror. Red wig (because my hair is blonde now) the same make-up and
God-awful costume that makes me want to die because it is so uncomfortable,
soaking wet and I’ve worn it so much that it’s like a very nasty
second skin. Surreal as hell. We may as well have never stopped
shooting. Five months of life that I’ve just had may as well have not
happened. The most frightening part was that it all felt so normal.
It was great to see [those] people again, but get me to the
airport...get me home.
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