“Titanic” is an epic and legendary epic that has become a classic.
Shooting it is equally spectacular and difficult.
The whole process is filled with crazy stories and team exploits.
But there is certainly one experience that none of those involved will forget.
Crew members from #Titanic opens on the night the set was drugged with PCP from spiked clam chowder: “Grips came down the aisle doing wheelies in wheelchairs … It was just a weird experience.” https://t.co/T681bEWofB
— Variety (@Variety) December 20, 2022
The date is August 9, 1996. The photos were taken in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For dinner, mussel soup is served, seasoned with phencyclidine.
Phencyclidine or phenylcyclohexyl piperidine, also known as angel dust, is a dissociative anesthetic used primarily recreationally for its significant mind-altering effects. It can cause hallucinations, distorted perception of sounds and aggressive behavior.
James Cameron will direct a scene in which Bill Paxton’s character discovers Rose’s necklace.
Team member Jake Clark said: “Suddenly one of the guys working on the equipment started talking really fast. He was a tall big guy. He leaned against the door jamb and addressed we: ‘Guys, how are you? I feel special. I feel like I took something. “At that moment, James Cameron himself burst into the room, his assistant ran after him. The director shouted: there is something in me. Get him out immediately.”
Authorities have never revealed who “seasoned” the team’s soup and why.
Someone apparently drugged the Titanic cast and crew with PCP and I’m only now learning that pic.twitter.com/buz9N4Gld2
— Scott (@CinematicScott) December 18, 2022
Since filming takes place in Halifax, the main actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are absent.
Probably, if the stars had been drugged, the hysteria around the accident would have been much greater.
Actor Bill Paxton, on the other hand, eats the soup. “Oh, he was a really nice guy,” says decorator Claude Russell. “He was just sitting in the hallway enjoying the hum of the air conditioners. Meanwhile, the guys who man the cameras and the equipment were running around in wheelchairs and doing somersaults.”
Many people from the team were sent to the hospital.
James Cameron recalled the incident: ‘People were moaning, sobbing, laughing, collapsing on tables and chairs. My cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel, had taken several people to a party on a train. God, you can’t make a thing up such”.
Jake Clark doesn’t try the soup, but stays on set until 4 in the morning.
After a few hours, when the hysteria had subsided, Clarke saw director James Cameron and Bill Paxton. “Their eyes were blood red, like beets. Amazing. James was trying to normalize on whiskey and Paxton was a huge weed lover – a real ‘stoner’. But now he was sitting very still. I took a cigarette out of his and I went out and laughed a lot. There, I was one of the few who didn’t freak out and just sat there and smoked a joint.”
“Let me just say it was a really weird experience,” concludes Clarke.
