Titanic", by screenwriter/director James Cameron, earned Kate Winslet an Oscar nomination, made her one of the most famous movie stars in the world and was the most successful film in human history. Yet, for years the excellent British actress has stated in interviews that she will never make another film with him.
"I almost drowned twice and suffered from hypothermia," she said at the time about her experiences from the grueling filming.
"Every time something would go wrong, he'd lose it and start screaming. You'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me to agree to work with James Cameron again."
"Did I really say all those things?"
Winslet now asks with a half-embarrassed smile, when she is asked to explain why she changed her mind and decided to give Cameron another chance.
"Almost 27 years have passed since we made 'Titanic', and I was very young then. I still had so much to learn. It was my first Hollywood film. I celebrated my 21st birthday on the set. More than half a lifetime has passed. We are different people today The truth is that I didn't hesitate for a moment when Jim called me and offered me to participate in 'Avatar: The Way of the Water'. I was very flattered and moved that he thought of me. I agreed even before I read the script."
After "Titanic" you also said that you would not make a film that takes place in water again, and the current film takes place mostly entirely in the water.
"Well, it's actually funny, because I've always loved the water. We live by the ocean, and I surf and swim all the time. Even as a child, I was always the first to jump into the water when we went on vacation with the family. When Jim told me that the job he was assigning me as a sophomore The way of the water' will require me to learn free diving (diving for long minutes without oxygen cylinders, YK), I was only happier."
What was it like working with Cameron again after so many years?
"It was completely different. Ironically, 'Titanic' was much more complicated and difficult for the actors to perform. Despite all the technological innovations and associated challenges, the method of working in 'Avatar' is actually completely liberating. Jim is still the genius he always was. He is still Full of passion, but he's calmed down as a person, he's mellowed. Sigourney Weaver and I even talked about it. He's had more kids, he's a family man now. Titanic had a lot of tension and pressure, but the Avatar series is his baby. He knows the characters and this world."
"At the same time," she adds, "Jim also believes that humans are capable of superhuman things at times. I don't know anyone else like that. He believes that we can push ourselves further than we think we can. I love seeing how He encourages people to go that extra distance, to experience something that scares or discourages them."
Sees the light 13 years after "Avatar" became a cultural phenomenon, photo: from the film
Cameron test
"Avatar: The Way of the Water" lands on the screens no less than 13 years after the first film - an immersive and technologically groundbreaking futuristic epic about a massive collision between humans and the Na'vi tribe - crushed the box office around the world and became a real cultural phenomenon.
With a budget of more than 350 million dollars, it is one of the most expensive (and most expensive) films ever produced.
If it succeeds as the previous film did ($2.9 billion in global revenue), Cameron promises at least three more sequels (work on "Avatar 3" is almost finished, and "Avatar 4" is already in filming).
But the road to the top of the chart of the highest-grossing films of all time is far from guaranteed.
Cinemas have not yet recovered from the corona, and the booming streaming services mean that fewer and fewer people choose to leave their living rooms to watch new movies.
The question also arises: who even remembers "Avatar"?
Seriously, have you ever watched it again since it came out?
Do you know someone who really likes him?
Although it caused quite a stir when it was released (and even brought 3D back into vogue for a few years), it doesn't seem like it has many fans.
Sometimes it seems that his footprint on popular culture is limited to a handful of jokes that deal with the similarity of the Nabi's to Smurfs.
Cameron, for his part, doesn't sound too worried.
You can understand him.
This is not the first time he has had his back against the wall, nor the second time.
He is used to everyone doubting him.
He is used to everyone predicting that he will fail.
It happened to him when he made "Titanic".
It happened to him when he made "Avatar".
Everyone remembers how it ended in both cases.
"I had many doubts when the corona raged," the 68-year-old director told the Hollywood magazine "Variety" on the blue carpet, a few minutes before the world premiere of his new film.
"We had to stop work for six months. We didn't know if there would be any cinemas left where we could show our film. But we held on. People are filling the theaters again. Everything is back. We sold all the tickets for the screenings of the first weeks. So yes, you can say that I Quite happy."
No longer excited about being doubted.
James Cameron, photo: REUTERS
play underwater
The plot of "Avatar: The Path of Water" returns us to the inhabited and visually stunning moon Pandora (which is four light years away from Earth), and takes place more than a decade after the events of the first film.
In the time that passed, the former anchorman Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his beloved Nabi daughter, Naytiri (Zoe Saldana), had time to start a family and get used to a calm and pleasant life among the thick vegetation and phosphorescent trees.
All of this suddenly changes when a new expedition from Earth lands on Pandora, to continue mining the rare and valuable mineral Unobtanium ("that which is unattainable", loosely translated).
To complicate matters further, Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the tough and brutal Marine who was defeated by Jake and Neytiri at the end of the previous film, also returns to Pandora, and he is only interested in one thing: revenge.
To protect the members of their tribe from the aggressive conquerors, Jake and Naytiri decide to abandon the forests with their children and hide with another tribe, who live their lives nearby and in the water.
Winslet, who is honored to be the top actress to join the ensemble, plays Ronal, the brave, feisty (and pregnant) partner of this clan's leader.
"Jim knows how to write roles for women," Winslet compliments Cameron, "he adores women. His women are strong and talented and leaders, and they have something to say. They lead with their heart, have integrity and insist on their truth. They take ownership of their power, and they Also very physically strong. I really liked the fact that he created a female protagonist who can do everything necessary, even though she is pregnant. This is his way of expressing appreciation for female abilities. After all, you don't stop doing things when you get pregnant. I worked a lot when I was pregnant. I went for long walks, Right up until I gave birth. I did a lot of physical things. So I really appreciated it."
What else can you tell about your character?
"She's definitely the matriarch. She's the leader of the clan, and she'll do anything to protect her family and her village. She doesn't want them to be threatened in any way. She agrees to have Jake and Naytiri and their children, and she agrees to hide them. But She is very suspicious, and she sees how the arrival of the new guests affects the behavior of her children. Suddenly they don't listen to her so much anymore and start getting into trouble."
Although the character she plays plays a minor role in the film, Winslet spent many months preparing before arriving on set.
She learned the Nabi language, mastered the accent (an area in which she specializes) and worked on the way her character moved.
Also, during preparations for filming, Winslet also amazed everyone, including Cameron, when she managed to stay underwater for seven and a quarter minutes, without the aid of oxygen cylinders, setting a new record.
The previous record, which was six and a half minutes, was set by none other than Tom Cruise during the filming of Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation.
"It was just amazing," she recalls.
"I loved it. I worked with real professionals, who helped me reach my full potential. It's not something you can just try to do at home by yourself. Things can go horribly wrong if you don't know exactly what you're doing. But I really loved the training. I loved The whole experience. It made me feel bionic, which is not something you expect to feel at such an age, when you already have three children."
"On the day I broke the record," she says, "I asked my husband not to come because I was stressed and I didn't want him to be there. But he snuck in anyway and took a picture of me. You see me coming up from the water and immediately asking, 'Am I dead? Am I dead?'
Because that's what it feels like when you're underwater for so many minutes. I immediately wanted to know how long I was able to stay down, and I couldn't believe it when I was told. The first thing I wanted to do was call the set to let Jim know."
"Kate is a real fielder," Cameron said recently, "she didn't know she was capable of it either, but since she invests a lot in the preparation phase she latched onto freediving as something that would help her develop her character. To shoot some of her scenes she had to get to a point where She is completely calm underwater, and in the end it turned out to be the most natural thing for her. I think she had to prove something to herself. Of course, I am not charging her extra for the therapeutic moment she experienced when she managed not to breathe for seven and a quarter minutes, and became the underwater queen." .
"The filming underwater takes place in huge and very deep pools and they require a lot of effort because you have to clear your head of all the other things," says Winslet, "of course everything happens much more slowly. The body doesn't move as fast as you want it to move, especially if you're filming a fight scene." .
"When we finish school," she adds, "we think that our learning days are behind us, that we won't learn many new things as adults. So getting an opportunity like this is something that always excites me. This process of learning, of feeling the physical change that takes place in you, which allows Go hold your breath for longer and longer - I love it."
With Leonardo DiCaprio in "Titanic", 1997, photo: AP
in her own way
After a few years of disappearing from the scene, Winslet is currently in the midst of a great season.
The 47-year-old actress, who has already managed to be nominated for an Oscar seven times (and win once, for her role in the film "Reading Boy"), stars in a variety of talked-about projects, on the big and small screen, and garners praise from wall to wall.
Last year she picked up an Emmy for her role as the drunken detective Mr. Sheehan in the recommended HBO thriller Easttown Secrets, and starred alongside young star Saoirse Ronan ("Little Women") in the lesbian period drama Ammonite.
In addition to that, very recently she also appeared alongside her 22-year-old daughter, Mia Tripleton, in an episode of the British anthology series "...I Am", which dealt with addiction to social networks.
Winslet arrives at the press conference in honor of "Avatar: The Path of Water" straight from the set of the biographical drama "Lee", in which she plays war photographer Lee Miller, and which she also produces.
Alongside all these, in recent years Winslet has also managed to strengthen her position as a feminist icon.
She has been resisting for years for her photographs to undergo photoshop treatment, and in "The Secrets of Eastown" she increased and insisted that her image should always be shown in her full exhaustion, without make-up and without filters.
"I'd like to think that the reason people connected so much to the character of Mer," she told The New York Times, "is because I play her as a middle-aged woman. Her body and her face reflect her age and what she's been through in life. I think that's a thing which is missing nowadays".
Winslet is married for the third time, and has three children (from three different fathers).
After the great success of "Titanic" she deliberately avoided making big movies.
"I lost my privacy overnight and felt exposed," she said in the past.
"I decided to take a step back. I thought that this profession might not suit me, but I was always comfortable making small films."
She likes to vary her choices, and she doesn't tend to repeat herself.
For evidence, her current collaboration with Cameron is the first time in her career that she is working again with the same director.
When I tell her this, she doesn't believe it either.
It's funny to see her run through her entire career in her head for a few seconds, until she finishes and tells me I'm right.
Wall to wall praise.
Winslet, photo: from "Secrets of Easton"
Enjoys giving advice to young people
Her favorite roles are those that require her to learn new things.
Thus, for example, she mentions specifically "Steve Jobs", the slandered film by Danny Boyle, during the filming of which she had to perform complex and long scenes in one take.
She chose the role in the MDAV youth series "Split", which is the most commercial choice in her filmography, only because she felt like playing a villain. After all, if she only wanted to, she could have joined one of the cinematic universes a long time ago.
"I don't do many blockbusters," she admits, "that's true. This is how my career looks. I'm very lucky that I was able to navigate my way in this way and that I found the opportunities that allowed me to follow the path I wanted to follow, because that way I can float between films Small ones for roles on television, for bigger films, for supporting roles. I just love acting. I'm also not necessarily picky about the genre or the subject, as long as it's a role in which I can bring something of myself and that it's something I can care about."
The fearlessness that characterizes Winslet's choice of roles and the absolute commitment to the characters she plays was already present in her first film, "Heavenly Creatures", by Peter Jackson, in which she played a teenager who helps her friend to murder her mother.
Immediately after that, she played a supporting role in Ang Lee's "On Reason and Sensitivity", and won her first Oscar nomination.
Emma Thompson, who starred alongside her, was deeply impressed by her, provided her with many tips and decided to take her under her wing.
Today, Winslet makes sure to pass these tips on to the young actors who appear alongside her.
"This is why I love working with children," she says.
"In 'The Way of the Water' there were many young actors, and it's so fun to see how they are amazed by the process. It's so fun to hear their questions and to be in a position where I can share with them the tips I've learned along the way. I'm glad I can help them do that . Jim also encouraged it a lot, he likes to see it. The work environment was calm, and it helped the kids feel confident."
Where does this constant tendency to push yourself to the limit come from?
"I don't think I push myself to the limit. My husband does it, and it always annoys me. But I don't think I'm extreme, I'm actually quite careful. I don't ski, for example. I didn't learn to ski when I was a child, because my family There was no money for it, and then when I was 25 I became a mother and I had to be more responsible, and I also raised my daughter alone for a while, so I decided not to do dangerous things. And here, just recently I decided that I will no longer learn to ski, because I don't want to To be in a situation where I can get injured. I actually take care of myself a lot. So I don't think I'm fearless. Absolutely not... but I am brave."
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