Kate Winslet remembers fainting on the set of 'Sense and Sensibility' (exclusive)
Kate Winslet was not barely hanging on in freezing waters (Titanic) or stranded in snow-covered mountains (The Mountain Between Us). But what might otherwise seem like a tame film production, 1995’s Ang Lee-directed Jane Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility, had its treacherous moments for the popular British actress.
As discussed in a in 25th anniversary reunion conversation with Winslet, Lee and other cast and crew members featured as a bonus feature on Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2 (watch an exclusive clip above), the actress fainted at one point during filming.
Winslet laughs it off during the reunion, pointing out that her collapse helped bring together co-stars Emma Thompson (who also penned the screenplay) and Greg Wise, who ended up marrying in 2003.
“I remember [fainting], and I remember then subsequently being part of a very early moment between [Emma and Greg],” Winslet says. “Because I’m fainting and getting hypothermia, and Greg [is] shoving my feet into his armpits to warm [me] up. So I had Greg at one end and then I’ve got Emma at the other end going, ‘You’ll be all right. Give me a little bit of a rub.’
“Little did I know that they were flirting over my…
Wise interjects: “Nearly dead body.”
“You were probably just wishing I would die so you could have a cheeky moment,” Winslet cracks.
Winslet collapsed after shooting around 50 takes of the scene where her teenager Marianne Dashwood slips and falls in the rain before she’s carried home by suitor John Willoughby (Wise). The cast became soaked under the constant pour of a rain machine, leading to Winslet to get hypothermia.
Winslet would have another bout with hypothermia while swimming through cold water while shooting her most famed project, 1997’s Titanic. “I was really f****** cold,” Winslet told Stephen Colbert in 2017. “There were lots of big tanks and there was lots of water, and that amount of water they couldn't heat it.”
Sense and Sensibility was also not the only production Winslet fainted on.
It also happened on 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while she and Jim Carrey captured the scene in which they sit in an oversized sink. In this case the water was hot, leaving the actress feeling lightheaded after three hours of being submerged in it.
"I got out,” she recalled at the time of release. “And I was like, 'Can I have some water?' And I fainted."
Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2 is now available. Buy it on Amazon.
