Kate Winslet Calls Titanic Kissing Scene With Leonardo DiCaprio A ‘Nightmare’ To Film

While revisiting the 1997 film’s famous “I’m flying” scene with Vanity Fair, Winslet said kissing Leonardo DiCaprio was “not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“My god, he’s quite the romancer, isn’t he? No wonder every young girl in the world wanted to be kissed by Leonardo DiCaprio,” Winslet joked, of DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson — the suave artist who romanced Winslet’s Rose while on the ship’s fateful voyage. “It was not all it’s cracked up to be.”

But she doesn’t place all the blame on Leo, telling VF that it was movie makeup that made the kiss less than dreamy.

“We kept doing this kiss, and I’ve got a lot of pale makeup on and I would have to do our makeup checks — on both of us, between takes — and I would end up looking as though I’d been sucking a caramel chocolate bar after each take because his makeup would come off on me,” she explained, noting that while she was rocking a pale look, DiCaprio was done up a few shades darker.

While she was dealing with the tan stains from his makeup, DiCaprio looked as though “there was a bit missing from his face” thanks to the residue of her paler cosmetics.

“Oh God, it was such a mess,” Winslet recalled.

But it didn’t stop there — Winslet said she ended up banging her knee on the railing a few times while trying to film the scene, sharing that it took multiple takes to get everything just right.

“This was a nightmare,” she said while she rewatched one of the movie’s most iconic moments. “Leo couldn’t stop laughing, and we had to reshoot this about four times because [James Cameron] wanted a very specific light for this, obviously, and the sunsets kept changing where we were.”

And to make matters worse, the pair had to carry extra makeup on them during the shoot because of the ship’s location in relationship to the film’s hair and makeup team.

“This was a section of the ship, it wasn’t part of the actual whole ship set that we had,” Winslet shared. “We had to climb up a ladder to get to it. Hair and makeup couldn’t reach us. Now, what you wouldn’t know because Leo looks completely natural but he had to lie on sunbeds and there’s a lot of fake tan makeup going on.”

“So I’ve got hidden his makeup and brushes and sponge, and my makeup and brushes and sponge on the other side,” Winslet said, gesturing to her dress. “And between takes, I was basically re-doing our makeup.”

Despite the awkward makeup moments, the Mare of Eastown actress said it was “quite funny” for her and DiCaprio to be “giggling and covered in each other’s makeup.”

The “I’m flying” scene is also the one Winslet said she’s still asked to re-create to this day, telling VF she can’t get on a boat without being asked to do it.

“It does my head in,” she said of the request, before being asked if she does it.

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” Winslet quipped.

Awkwardness aside, Titanic proved to be a major success, and remains — to this day — one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, something the Oscar-winner says she feels “very proud of.”

“I do feel very proud of it, because I feel that it is that film that just keeps giving,” she maintained. “Whole other generations of people are discovering the film or seeing it for the first time and there’s something extraordinary about that.”