They then reunited onscreen for the 2008 movie Revolutionary Road:
And while it may have been almost three decades since the pair first met, they remain as close as ever — with Leo even walking Kate down the aisle at her wedding to Edward Abel Smith, aka Ned Rocknroll, in 2012.
For reference, Adam and Kate worked together on the 2015 film Steve Jobs, and Adam told host Becky that they reunited at the 2016 SAG Awards in Los Angeles, where British Kate suggested they and their partners get dinner together after the ceremony.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK. It’s our town, we’ll take you out to dinner, Kate,’” Adam recalled. “And she’s like: ‘Um, well, why don’t we just eat where I’m staying because it’s so much easier?’ I’m like: ‘Oh, because you’re, like, super famous… What hotel are you at?’”
“She’s like: ‘Oh, no. I always stay with Leo when I’m in town,’” he then revealed, going on to recount his shock at being invited to Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio’s home. “I’m like: ‘We’re going to Leo’s house right now?’ She’s like: ‘Yeah, he’ll order food and we’ll…’ he’d just won Best Actor for The Revenant! Just minutes ago!”
“So, I’m like: ‘Hey, I didn’t know we were going to Leonardo DiCaprio’s house, can we stop at the liquor store on Sunset and, like, bring something?’ She’s like: ‘Of course!’” Adam went on. “So, two of us jump out of her car, she’s barefoot in the most beautiful gown ever, dripping in these diamonds from the award show, I’m in my tux. We walk in, get a nice bottle of scotch, and also, I’m starving because we didn’t eat anything, so I get a bag of cheddar Goldfish.”
“I’m the last person out of the car when we pull up to Leo’s, he’s standing on the front stoop being like: ‘Ahhh, you guys are here!’” he continued. “I hand Kate the bottle of scotch, and she gives the bottle of scotch to Leo. I get out, I’m the last one there, and I just have this bag of Goldfish.”
“And I don’t want to be like: ‘Oh, that scotch was from me,’” Adam laughed, before sharing Leo’s genuinely grateful reaction to being gifted a bag of Goldfish. “So, I just gave him the Goldfish, and I just said: ‘They’re cheddar!’ And he’s like: ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thanks, man!’”
“We walk in, we have champagne, we have the best night ever,” he concluded. “The first thing I do when I get back to my house at like 3 in the morning is text all my boys: ‘Yo, you’re not going to believe the night I had, Winslet brought me over to DiCaprio’s house! It was the coolest house I’ve ever seen in my life!’”
And the fact that Kate stays with Leo every time she is in LA — and is comfortable enough there to invite other people back for dinner — is perhaps unsurprising considering how much they gush over one another in interviews, seek each other out on red carpets and at award ceremonies, and have been each other’s biggest cheerleader over the years.
Previously, a video montage of their friendship went viral on social media, which included the time that Leo blew a kiss to Kate from the audience as she accepted her 2009 Golden Globe, with Kate saying in her speech at the time: “Leo, I’m so happy I can stand here and tell you how much I love you, and how much I’ve loved you for 13 years. I love you with all my heart, I really do.”
And in 2016, Kate burst with pride as Leo dominated the awards circuit ahead of winning his first-ever Oscar for his performance in The Revenant. In one clip from this time, she excitedly admits: “I’ve been so focused on Leo and him winning everything!”
But despite how much some fans may wish for the two to get together romantically, Kate has repeatedly insisted that there has never been any attraction between them. In fact, as early into their friendship as 1998, Kate laughed off claims that they were an item in an interview with Rolling Stone — saying that a romance would be “absolutely like incest.”
She reiterated this in 2014, telling Marie Claire: “I think the reason that friendship works is because there was never any romantic thing. 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.”
And in 2017, Kate said of Leo: “Luckily, and this was the fortunate thing, we never fancied each other. I know that’s really annoying to hear, sorry. We really never did. So it did mean that we were able to have this… Be able to tease each other, which we still do, which is really amazing.”
She has also discussed the nature of their close friendship at length, saying of Titanic in a 2017 interview: “I walked away with one of the greatest friendships of my life in my back pocket, which is Leo.”
Sharing some more insight into how they spend their time together, Kate added to Glamour that same year: “Sometimes we do quote the odd Titanic line back and forth to each other. Because only we can, and we find it really funny.”
“You don’t even want to know the last conversation we had, because it was so funny and made me laugh so much,” Kate went on. “We found ourselves saying to each other, ‘Can you imagine if the world really knew the stupid things we say?’ I’m not going to tell you what we actually talk about, but yeah, we’re very, very close.”
Leo has been equally complimentary of Kate, branding her one of his “dearest friends” in a 2010 interview with Esquire, where he added: “We have the ultimate trust in each other.”
And in 2021, Kate said that she “couldn’t stop crying” when she was finally able to reunite with Leo after they’d spent three years apart amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with the Guardian, she shared: “I’ve known him for half my life! It’s not as if I’ve found myself in New York or he’s been in London, and there’s been a chance to have dinner or grab a coffee and a catch-up. We haven’t been able to leave our countries.”
Let me know your thoughts on Kate and Leo’s friendship down below!