James Cameron Finally Admits ‘Jack Might’ve Lived’ On Raft At The End Of ‘Titanic’

To celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary, Cameron participated in a National Geographic special, “Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron,” in which three scientific tests were performed by stunt actors to determine if Jack could have fit on a makeshift raft along with Rose, which saved her life.

In the one successful test, stunt actors who were roughly the same size as DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who portrayed Rose, performed the “strenuous activities” that the characters went through in the film before they got off the sinking ship, before balancing on the raft with only the lower portions of their bodies submerged, according to previews of the episode from Variety and Rolling Stone.

Cameron then had the Rose stunt actor give her life jacket to Jack, something that does not happen in the movie.

If this had happened, Jack would have been “stabilized,” and “got into a place where if we projected that out, he just might’ve made it until the lifeboat got there,” Cameron said.

However, the character wouldn’t have allowed this to happen, Cameron said, saying Jack’s “thought process was, ‘I’m not going to do one thing that jeopardized her,’ and that’s 100 percent in character.”

The stunt actors also tested out a fan theory that both Jack and Rose could have fit on the raft (the stunt actor’s bodies mostly submerged in what would have been freezing cold water), as well as the theory that only the upper halves of their bodies were positioned on the raft above the water (Cameron said Jack could have lasted “hours” that way—until he considered how tired Jack and Rose would be after getting off the boat in the first place, and ultimately determined they would have suffered).