Kate Winslet: Kissing Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t ‘all it’s cracked up to be’

Kate Winslet revealed that she was constantly out of breath because her corset was so tight and Leonardo DiCaprio kept laughing while they were shooting.

Many people would swoon at the chance to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio, but Kate Winslet is here to set the record straight: “It was not all it’s cracked up to be.”

The famous on-screen kiss between Winslet and DiCaprio at the front of the Titanic is one of the most iconic scenes from the 1997 film. But shooting that moment was far from romantic, Winslet revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair published Thursday that it was a “nightmare.”

The Oscar-winner shared that she was constantly out of breath because her corset was so tight, and that her and DiCaprio’s makeup kept rubbing off on each other during takes.

“Oh god, it was such a mess,” she said.

The format of the Vanity Fair interview had Winslet rewatching and commenting on iconic scenes from her career. When the Titanic kiss scene came up, Winslet immediately reacted: “Oh my lordy. This might be really cringe.”

Winslet was only 22 when Titanic came out and DiCaprio was 23. The actors, both of whom have gone on to win Oscars, were still very early in their careers.

As Winslet watched the scene she commented: “See I look at that and I just see how much I couldn’t breathe in that bloody corset.”

“Yep. See I can’t breathe,” she said later in the scene. “My boobs practically up to my chin,” she chuckled.