“Asking God to please let you die?”: James Cameron Almost Drowned Kate Winslet in $2.2 Billion Movie, Did Not Think of it as a Big Deal
James Cameron is the only director in the history of cinema to have three films in the billion-dollar club. But success like that doesn’t come easy. He went to extreme lengths to make his movies what they are. Oftentimes, not realizing what his heedless ambition does to the people he is working with.
This is what happened to Kate Winslet while filming Titanic. Her discomfort and near-death experiences were utterly disregarded and the actress has been vocal about her feelings. James Cameron on the other hand has also explained why he did what he did.
Kate Winslet Almost Died Shooting Titanic
Much like the ending of the film, Kate Winslet’s experience shooting Titanic was nothing short of tragic. She sustained several injuries, bruises, and traumatic life experiences. Crossing this thorny road brought her stardom and success like no other. But as a young actress, she has vowed to not work with Jim Cameron again. She had said:
“You would have to pay me a lot of money to work with Jim again.”
The director’s nonchalance to Winslet’s struggles and no show of kindness didn’t sit right with the actress. She almost drowned in one of the scenes but Cameron did not stop the shooting or even give her time to catch her breath.
Even after the water-related incidents and Cameron in the director’s chair inflicted trauma, Winslet still worked with him years later in Avatar: Way of the Water. The movie like its predecessor, was a massive success and changed Cameron’s image in Kate Winslet‘s eyes.
James Cameron Offers an Explanation
James Cameron once shared his side of the story, offering an explanation for his ruthless behavior towards Winslet during the filming of Titanic. He attributed his cold behavior to the enormous stress he was under making the film because he had run out of money. And the stakes were so high that he could not bring himself to care about anything else.
He goes on to say that the fear and agitation Winslet felt on the set, wonderfully translated into her acting.
“I’ll cop to my faults, but I’ll also defend the situation in a rational way, and it goes like this: Isn’t the purpose of being attracted to something intense and challenging—such as, say, white-water rafting—to come out the other side and tell everybody how you almost died? It doesn’t mean you almost died. We simply let Kate think she was nearly drowning. A little sputtering and coughing do not count in my book because I have almost drowned several times and know what it feels like. Asking God to please let you die? I was thinking the same thing at about the same point. Titanic was a catastrophic production financially and getting worse every day. Kate probably got some unnecessary stress from me, but I would say 99 percent of her stress was internally induced as part of her acting process.”
Titanic was a financial catastrophe that James Cameron was going through but the movie became one of the centerpieces in the history museum of cinema. So maybe as a filmmaker, Cameron’s behavior is justified.
Titanic is available to watch on Disney+.
Source: Collider
