Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in 1997’s ‘Titanic’. Photo: 20th Century Fox/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

Kate Winslet is addressing the often-debated Titanic door scene — which, according to her, may not even be a “door” scene after all.

While speaking with Australian talk show The Project and promoting her performance in Ellen Kuras’ new biopic Lee, the 49-year-old Academy Award winner said that the “door” featured in the iconic Titanic scene wasn’t really a door, but rather another piece of the set.

When asked if there was “room on the door” for costar Leonardo DiCaprio — whose character Jack Dawson held onto the piece of floating wood after the ship sank — Winslet, who played Rose Dewitt Bukater, said that she knew the interviewer would “ask me that question.”

“I thought, ‘He’s busting out the Titanic question and next he’s gonna ask me about the door.’ I absolutely knew it,” Winslet said. “But, you know, what I will say that’s really interesting is people keep referring to it as a door. It actually wasn’t even a door.”

“It’s a piece of bannister, like stairway or something, that had broken off,” she continued. “Who knows if [DiCaprio] could’ve [fit] on there or not. Honestly, I don’t have any insights here that anyone else hasn’t already tried to figure out.”

From left: Director James Cameron and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on the set of ‘Titanic’. Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox

The scene has been a topic of discussion among Titanic fans and general movie-goers ever since the film’s 1997 release, with some fans on Reddit also coming to the conclusion that the debris wasn’t a door and matching it with an image from inside the film’s titular ship.

Titanic director James Cameron also previously commissioned a scientific study to determine if there really was enough room for both Jack and Rose on the floating debris, when he and a team of scientists tapped two stunt doubles to reenact four different scenarios.

“Jack might’ve lived, but there’s a lot of variables,” Cameron, 70, said last year. “I think his thought process was, ‘I’m not gonna do one thing that jeopardizes her.’ “

 

Kate Winslet attends the 2024 Women in Film (WIF) annual gala in Beverly Hills, California on Oct. 24, 2024.MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty

During a 92nd Street Y Q&A for Lee back in September, Winslet shared some additional insight on the scene, joking that DiCaprio, 49, has probably “got PTSD” from being asked about the Titanic moment so many times. Speaking with Josh Horowitz, Winslet also revealed that the water was not as deep as it looked on screen.

“So first of all, I was regularly like, ‘Can I just go for a pee?’ And then I get up, get off the door, walk to the edge of the tank, sort of 20 feet away and I literally have to fling my leg over and climb up and come and get back on the door again. It’s terrible,” she recalled.

“Anyway, yeah. So it was waist-high. Leo, I’m afraid to say was kneeling down. I shouldn’t be saying anyways, Jimmy Cameron’s gonna be ringing me,” Winslet joked.

The actress also shared at the time that the cast and crew filmed the scene in an infinity tank, where there was “constant water rushing and you could hear the constant sound of water.” As she explained, everybody is “entirely looped” in with “the last 22 minutes” of the movie “because you can hear this water noise the whole time.”