Kate Winslet shares rare details of friendship with Leo DiCaprio, 26 years after Titanic release

In 1997 a decades-long friendship between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio was born when they starred together in Titanic. Their close bond has become internet lore, and now British actress Kate has given a rare glimpse into what their friendship looks like after 26 years. 

Despite now living widely different lives, Kate said that they will always make time for each other’s phone calls, revealing that they never say: “Hang on, I’ll call you tomorrow.” 

“It’s instant. And that’s actually really something,” she said in a new featurette, Titanic: Stories from the Heart, found on the bonus disc of the new 4k Ultra HD release, and published by ET.

“To have friendships that bind you, and that shared history, it’s really something,” she concluded. 

© Dan MacMedan

When Kate and Leo first met on the set of the blockbuster James Cameron movie, she was 21 years old, and he was 22. Thanks to their undeniable on-screen chemistry, rumors about a possible romance between the two young actors soon began to swirl. However, Kate and Leo have always denied there was anything more than friendship between the pair. 

“I think the reason that friendship works is because there was never any romantic thing,” she later told Marie Claire. “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 we never did.” 

© CBS Photo Archive

Their friendship has spanned various relationships and family changes, and Leo even walked Kate down the aisle in 2012 when she married Edward Abel Smith, formerly known as Ned Rocknroll, in an intimate ceremony in New York that was only attended by the couple’s closest friends. 

In 2017, after the death of Kate’s mother from ovarian cancer, they came together to auction off a private dinner together for one lucky fan. Organized as part of the actor’s annual St. Tropez charity auction, the dinner sold for $1.35million and proceeds went towards the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and a GoFundMe campaign to help a British mother who had been struggling to pay for her cancer treatments.

© Christopher Polk

Leo, 49, is now living in Hollywood and is often pictured out partying with his friends, while 48-year-old Kate lives in West Wittering, a seaside village in the UK where she lives with her husband and her three children Mia, Joe and Bear. 

Mia Threapleton is now an actress in her own right, and she appeared alongside her mom in the Bafta-winning drama I Am Ruth last year. She is now starring in Apple TV+ drama The Buccaneers.