His character is still hated! Billy Zane looked back at his famous role as smarmy Caledon ‘Cal’ Hockley in the 1997 Oscar winning film Titanic while chatting with Us Weekly Video on Monday, June 13.
The Guilt actor, 50, starred in the James Cameron–directed blockbuster nearly 20 years ago, and yet fans still call him out for Cal’s ruthless behavior. After all, he treated fiancée Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) horribly and tried to get in between her and dreamy artist Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Billy Zane at the ‘Titanic’ Premiere, 1997. Bei/Shutterstock
His character is still hated! Billy Zane looked back at his famous role as smarmy Caledon ‘Cal’ Hockley in the 1997 Oscar winning film Titanic while chatting with Us Weekly Video on Monday, June 13.
The Guilt actor, 50, starred in the James Cameron–directed blockbuster nearly 20 years ago, and yet fans still call him out for Cal’s ruthless behavior. After all, he treated fiancée Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) horribly and tried to get in between her and dreamy artist Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
“The world is divided into two kinds,” Zane explained to Us. “When [women] were younger they were like, ‘How can you do that to Jack?’ And when they grow up they [now say to me], ‘What was Rose thinking?’”
Back in 2012, Zane reunited with Cameron, Bill Paxton (Brock Lovett) and Frances Fisher (Ruth Dewitt Bukater) among others for a Good Morning America interview. As for DiCaprio? The former child star wasn’t in attendance, but Zane still has his cell phone number.
Zane filmed plenty of memorable scenes while on board the British passenger liner. In one fancy breakfast scene, Cal got so angry with Rose that he flipped a table. Tea glasses shattered and Rose shuddered, but luckily, Zane only wrecked one of the actress’ beaded chiffon dresses during filming
We did 17 [takes] and they only had two dresses, and I spilled orange juice once,” Zane told Us. “The wardrobe department was like, ‘Thank you so much!’ I think it was our first day. It was our first scene.”
Zane enjoyed playing the villain, but thinks that more good guys need to be represented in film. “The bad guys are fun because they are challenging,” he said. “I like to play them because they are usually a little less dimensional on page and need to be rounded off and require a challenging approach. Heroes I lean towards [though] because I’m a bit of a sentimentalist.”
