14 DAY TRIAL // Since Kate Winslet starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic” in 1997, she’s been forced to regularly deny rumors they were more than friends. Now is that time of the year again, with the Oscar winner telling the latest issue of Marie Claire magazine that, though they worked together several times after the blockbuster, they never took their relationship any further.
She knows only too well that this is “disappointing” news to those joint fans of hers and Leo’s who still think they would have been perfect for each other.
Their friendship wouldn’t have worked if they had got romantic
Kate is practical about her relationship with Leo and she knows that it wouldn’t have lasted all these years if she’d given in to the impulse to bed him. You have to remember, back in the ‘90s, DiCaprio was one of the hottest men in showbiz, perhaps even more so than today.
Once “Titanic” exploded, his stardom shot to the stratosphere and there was literally no woman around to have seen the movie (and his character’s heroic death to save hers), who would not have melted at the sight of him in person. To many of these fans, Kate had an iron will to resist his charms.
Somehow, she did.
“I think the reason that friendship works is because there was never any romantic thing. It’s so disappointing for people to hear that, because in the soap opera of the Kate and Leo story we fell in love at first sight and had a million snogs, but actually we never did,” the actress says for the magazine.
“He always saw me as one of the boys; I’ve never really been a girly-girl. We needed each other to lean on because we were very young and working all kinds of crazy bloody hours and it was a shock to the system,” she continues.
“Kate and Leo forever”
Of course, fans who see beyond the characters two actors are playing, and fully understand that their story, no matter how convincing, is still make-believe, have nothing but admiration for Leo and Kate for making it through the years as good friends.
In an industry as fickle as showbiz, where “till death do you part” usually means an average of 10 years at best, and where BFF (best friend forever) means BFALAIC (best friend as long as it’s convenient – we just made that up, by the way), seeing two people as famous as these two stay close is proof that not all hope in humanity is lost.
Besides being good friends and, just as importantly, not making a show of it, Leo and Kate also continue to be great on the big screen whenever they work together. They most recently starred in “Revolutionary Road,” in which they played husband and wife at a crossroads in their marriage, a drama that was well received by critics and fans.
They’re friends, but joint parties are out of the question
Still, some distances must be kept. Asked if she and Leo would ever have a joint birthday party together, Kate is quite amused by the thought.
“He’s 40 this year and I’m 40 next — that’s weird. Isn’t that weird?” Kate says. “He wouldn’t have a joint party with me, he really wouldn’t. Definitely not. He likes to have his moments. But, also I don’t think I’d want to have a joint party with him, more to the bloody point!”
That’s probably because Kate is more of a homebody, while Leo still likes to party hard, with his male posse and his supermodel admirers and lots of booze, allegedly.