How Kate Winslet Really Felt After Titanic's Success

James Cameron's Titanic is one of the most successful and profitable movies to date, earning $2.2 billion globally, per The Hollywood Reporter, and winning an impressive 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards. The 1997 blockbuster film about the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic made stars out of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, who both went on to become two of the biggest and most sought-after actors in Hollywood. 

The pair's success was imminent, but it turns out Winslet, who was just 21 years old at the time, had a hard time navigating her newfound stardom after Titanic's release. "I went into self-protective mode right away," she told Marc Maron on his WTF with Marc Maron podcast on Jan. 14, 2021. "It was like night and day from one day to the next. I was subject to a lot of personal physical scrutiny, I was criticized a lot and the British press were quite unkind to me."

Keep scrolling to find out why it was a "horrible" experience for Winslet and why she's still "baffled" about some people's negative reactions.

Kate Winslet said she felt "bullied" following her Titanic fame. "I remember thinking, 'this is horrible and I hope it passes' — it did definitely pass but it made me realize that, if that's what being famous was, I was not ready to be famous, definitely not," she told Marc Macron in January 2021. 

In 2017, during an interview with Entertainment Weekly for the film's 20th anniversary, Winslet echoed the same sentiments as she remembered all the negative press she got. "I was really excited about this film and all the lovely friends I had made and I was like, 'Aw, people are being mean about our film and it hasn't even come out yet,'" Winslet said at the time. "And I remember being quite baffled by that and confused by that in ways that, if I'm being honest with you, I'm still baffled."

She also told Maron that the negativity is part of the reason she chose roles in smaller films after Titanic. "I was still learning how to act, I felt I wasn't ready to do lots of big Hollywood jobs," Winslet explained. "I didn't want to make mistakes and blow it, I wanted to be in it for the long game. I strategically tried to find small things so I could understand the craft a bit better and maintain some degree of privacy and dignity."

Winslet's strategy seemingly paid off because she's gone on to receive numerous acting awards, including an Oscar for her role in The Reader in 2009.