The two scenes that made Kate Winslet pass out: “Give me a little bit of a rub”
Kate Winslet has been through a lot.
No, really. Across her three-decade-long career, Winslet has put herself through a lot for her craft, including navigating the cruel underbelly of misogyny at the root of Hollywood. One of the most notable moments was after Titanic, which Winslet has always been transparent about, and how she had to endure years of fatphobia in the throes of navigating her own career.
She got her own back once, calling out the press for their harassment, but the damage lingered and only angered her more as time went on. “It’s absolutely appalling,” she once said. “What kind of a person must they be to do something like that to a young actress who’s just trying to figure it out?”
The bullying that she faced wasn’t unique to her. Unfortunately, countless female actors have experienced similar situations, from Meryl Streep to Florence Pugh. Pugh has also spoken out about it a few times, especially when it comes to discussing the treatment that women get in the early stages of their careers, and how people like Pugh are too often told that they don’t “look the part” to be able to go the whole nine yards.
Winslet, on the other hand, has also had to balance gratitude with resilience in another way, especially when it comes to roles that reach such a high level of success that she unknowingly vows to be haunted by them for all time. Obviously, James Cameron’s 1997 epic is the winner in this department, and Winslet’s remarks about it prove that she’s constantly walking that tightrope between humility and straight-up fatigue.
This slight annoyance doesn’t always come from nowhere, however. In fact, it’s usually for all the same reasons some actors feel disillusioned with some of their best work, because working on set for hours on end is no match for the magic that audiences see on the other side, on the screen. And also because of some of the memories behind the scenes of the working conditions, drained anything resembling movie magic.
While shooting Titanic, for instance, Winslet was almost as cold as she looked, because it was impossible to heat up the massive tanks of water they had to shoot in for the scenes. While filming for Sense and Sensibility, Winslet actually passed for similar reasons during a scene with Greg Wise, who ended up marrying in one of the co-stars, Emma Thompson, in 2003.
“I remember [fainting], and I remember then subsequently being part of a very early moment between [Emma and Greg],” Winslet recalled during the 25th anniversary reunion. “Because I’m fainting and getting hypothermia, and Greg [is] shoving my feet into his armpits to warm [me] up. So I had Greg at one end and then I’ve got Emma at the other end going, ‘You’ll be all right. Give me a little bit of a rub.’”
Winslet passed out during the scene where she slips in the pouring rain and is then carried home by Wise. Recalling the moment, she also joked about how Thompson and Wise had flirted “over my nearly dead body”, though this was a regular occurrence every time the temperature dropped past a certain level – Winslet also passed out after a scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind after she had to sit submerged in hot water alongside Jim Carrey for over three hours. “I got out,” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Can I have some water?’ And I fainted.”
Clearly, Winslet has been through the wringer when it comes to her career. Through it all, however, she manages to see the light, whether it’s going home at the end of another long and hard day in one piece or reflecting on the legacy of a particular project that still means a lot to a lot of people.
