TITANIC INFO

Some questions I receive via e-mail become pretty common, so here i will post the most frequently asked quesitons and some interesting news and info.

THE JOB

*how did you get the job?*what does a photo double do?*

I was over at my uncles with my family and he was telling us about his friend who lives in Ensenada, Mexico and heard that there is this huge movie being made about the TITANIC and that they were hiring extras. My uncle said that they needed people who are European looking. he thought it would be cool if we all sent in our photos. I said ok,sounds like fun. so i went through pictures i had, got a head shot(nothing but a snap shot ofmyself) typed up all my info and sent it in. this was in october 96. January I come home and there's a message saying, "This message is for Natalia, this is Deedra calling from the TITANIC..." I completely freaked and didn't know what to think. all I knew id that they wantedME! that was a friday. she called me on saturday while i was on the phone with my friend and asks me if i'm interested, tells me that they want me to be the photo double for the leading lady in the movie, kate winslet, at the time i had NO idea who kate was, so i kept saying "OK". she wanted me to come down so that they could get a polaroid and give me a tour of the set to see if I wanted the job. When I called back my friend and told her about the conversation with Deedra, she says to me, Kate is in all these really great British movies...I can't believe you don't know who she is! That weekend I rented "Sence & Sensibility" just to see her and surfed the net for a while looking desperately for pictures. It's really scary how we look alike. we could be sisters and we're from two completely different countries!

As a photo double, for the most part, I sat around for hours. Sometimes the hours were spent on the set watching Kate acting and other times I would be hanging out with some of the extras, cast, or crew members. From what I was told my job as a photo double was to observe Kate so that when I was called to be on film I would be able to mimic her movements as "Rose". I did scenes that she didn't necessarily have to do but required "Rose" to be in them.

Below is one of the pictures taken on the set.thanks to darrell for making it possible to view through his computer smarts.

Leo on the set of TITANIC during the South Hampton shoot

picture taken by Jack Cardoza (TITANIC extra)

THE CAST


KATE WINSLET plays "Rose" in TITANIC. When I was asked to be her photo double I had no idea who Kate was. I had heard of Sence and Sensibility, but not her. Kate is really cool. She's sweet and open. I watched JUDE with her and a few other people in the key building one evening while we were doing nothing. I always thought that it must be really weird to watch yourself and have others watch you as this other person on screen. She was really cute because at one point in the film her character has a nude scene. Before the scene came up, Kate says to us, "Oh, the nude scene is coming up. I can't watch it. I get embarrassed. I was much thinner then." If you get the chance rent JUDE. It's a really good film. I think it's just as good as the book.


LEONARDO DICAPRIO plays "Jack" in TITANIC. I met him a few days after I started working as Kate's PD. The proper thing to do when meeting someone there is to shake their hand and kiss them on the cheek. I thought it was really a cute thing to do. That's how we met. Leo was goofy and very professional at the same time while on the set. He knew when he could play and when it was time to work. A very entertaining individual. The one scene that I am in with Leo is one when the ship is sinking. Leo is runnin down a hall of water holding a small child. That's me behind him running with my head down. They have that scene in the trailer, so look for it if you get the chance. This picture is linked to the Unofficial Leonardo Dicaprio Homepage. This page is really well done. Leo was recently voted one of the 50th most beautiful people
.

by popular demand. . .Danny Nucci plays "Fabrizio", "Jack's" best friend, in TITANIC. Danny spoke with his character's accent or most of the time I was around him in the key building. He speaks differently when he's Danny. He's a sweet guy. Very humerous. He played guitar sometimes. He and Leo would be in one of the dressing rooms singing Oasis songs. One of the AD's would complain about how many times had to hear the same songs over and over again in the same night. he got myself saying "for f***'s sake!" in an english accent. that saying was frequently heard around the corridors of the key building.

TITANIC RELEASE DATE PUSHED BACK

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Titanic," the most expensive movie ever made, will miss its original July 2 release date by more than six months to allow director James Cameron more time to complete the disaster epic. With a price tag that could exceed $200 million, "Titanic" will debut December 19, U.S. distributor Paramount Pictures said Tuesday. The announcement followed wide speculation in Hollywood that the film would not be ready in time for the lucrative July 4th holiday weekend, but would probably debut later in the summer. "The decision to push was a difficult one which required us to compare the rising curve of compromises to the film against the descending curve of commercial gain in late summer," said Robert Friedman, vice chairman of Paramount's Motion Picture Group, in a statement. Pushing the date back to December could cost Paramount millions in unrealized box-office receipts during the less-lucrative Christmas holiday season, plus added charges for extended financing of the film. But it also takes the film out of what is considered the most competitive summer ever. The film's release date was considered so important that even Harrison Ford called Paramount insisting that the movie not clash with his summer film, "Air Force One." Distributors shuffle films to make up for delay Cameron, who says he is waiving all of his fees for making "Titanic," said the delayed opening showed Paramount's confidence in the film's box-office potential. Historically, summer is Hollywood's biggest money-making season. This Memorial Day weekend, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" took in a record $90.2 million. Paramount already has said it was moving its John Travolta-Nicolas Cage film, "Face Off," to June 27 to make up for the "Titanic" delay. Twentieth Century Fox, which is distributing "Titanic" internationally, is releasing the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy "Out to Sea"-- once set for May -- to help take up the July 2 slack. The film about the ill-fated luxury ocean liner stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane and Kathy Bates. There have been numerous reports of problems on the film's Baja California set, including Cameron's obsession with detail that ran up costs while running down the cast and crew. Cameron reportedly insisted on meticulous historical accuracy down to the logo on dining room china and revised entire shots to make sure each piece of furniture was in the right place.

Who said of filming the upcoming Titanic, "Some days, I'd wake up and think, Please, God, let me die"?

A. Leonardo DiCaprio

B. Billy Zane

C. Kate Winslet

D. Director James Cameron

the answer is . . . *C* Sense and Sensibility's Winslet told the Los Angeles Times that she was glad she had done the shoot, despite filming scenes in which she was weighted down under freezing water.

more to come. . . . . HOME_PAGE