People.com Archive Picks and Pans Review: Kate Winslet By Alynda Wheat and Monique Jessen Published on April 9, 2012 12:00 PM Share Tweet Pin Email >HOW TITANIC CHANGED MY LIFE WHAT SHE WISHES SHE KNEW THEN “I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself,” says Winslet, who was just 20 when she landed the role of headstrong Rose opposite Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Jack in the 1997 blockbuster, which is being released in 3D on April 4. “I prided myself on being smiley and uncom-plaining. And my American accent was appalling!” But the intense, waterlogged seven-month shoot “really did teach me so much,” she adds. “Leo and I still say to each other, ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing will ever be as hard as that was, in terms of filming.'” HOW SHE SURVIVED INSTA-STARDOM “I felt defiant that it would not change my life,” Winslet says of the film, which earned $1.8 billion worldwide and won 11 Oscars. “I wish I had been better prepared. It was a white-knuckle ride.” But she did find support in DiCaprio, then 21. Away from the cameras, “they would be propped up against each other, laughing,” recalls director James Cameron. “They created a little bubble for themselves where they felt safe.” HER ODDEST MOMENT In an early scene when Rose is about to jump ship, “the light was catching all the little hairs on my arm and Jim was like, ‘We’re going to have to shave your arm,'” recalls Winslet. “So we stop filming and the makeup artist has a Bic razor and some Gillette shaving foam. It was hilarious.” NOW IT CAN BE TOLD During the lengthy water scenes, “Leo was just useless,” Winslet says with a laugh. “He was like, ‘I don’t want to be cold anymore.’ I did the looking after. He was a 21-year-old baby.” Updated by Lesley Messer