Kate Winslet Has the Only Correct Answer About an Eternal Titanic Debate

Unlike Avatar, nobody ever doubts the lasting cultural relevance of James Cameron’s other masterpiece, Titanic — but for some reason, the conversation about it keeps coming around to the same stupid debate: Could Jack have also fit on that piece of debris that kept Rose out of the freezing water? Every pedantic person alive has weighed in and the Mythbusters even got involved, to the point that Cameron himself responded (“They’re fun guys and I loved doing that show with them, but they’re full of shit.”)

It was MTV’s Josh Horowitz who attempted to get Leonardo DiCaprio to weigh in on this back in 2019, though he offered “no comment” at the time. And now Horowitz has gotten Kate Winslet to give a definitive answer: it wouldn’t have worked. And she’s got the stand-up paddle board experience to prove it:

A quick note on the stand-up paddle board, which is both the least important and most fascinating detail here: Winslet famously met her husband Abel Smith (formerly known as Ned Rocknroll) during a house fire on the British Virgin Islands estate belonging to Richard Branson, who is Smith’s uncle. There’s no evidence that stand-up paddle boarding was involved during that visit, but it’s impossible not to imagine them returning to the place they first met (hey, just like Jack and Rose!) and getting in some aquatic exercise while they do it.

Anyway. Winslet’s unwavering confidence in the correctness of what happened in Titanic feels inspired directly by Cameron’s, and actually feels like something her Avatar: The Way of Water character might do too. Playing a leader in the aquatic Na’vi tribe where much of the story takes place, Winslet is fiery and not remotely impressed with our heroes Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). She’s someone you don’t want to mess with—and if she says there’s no place for you on that floating door, you believe her.