Conga Lines, Wheelchairs and Chowder: Billy Zane Opens Up About the ‘Titanic’ PCP Incident That Nobody Planned

One of the strangest nights in Hollywood production history has a new narrator — and The Oath star Billy Zane is finally telling his side of the story behind the infamous PCP incident on the set of Titanic.

Speaking on the July 17 episode of the Brotherly Love podcast, Zane, 60, addressed the incident that took place during filming of the 1997 blockbuster — an event that left approximately 80 cast and crew members unknowingly drugged and hospitalized, according to PEOPLE.

What Zane Said About the Night

Zane was candid about the fact that he was not personally present when the incident occurred. He noted that it happened during production of the “modern day” portion of the film — a timeframe he placed around the Nova Scotia location shoot. He recalled hearing that the food involved was either oatmeal or clam chowder — the tainted meal that delivered a dose of PCP nobody ordered — and described two very different experiences among those who consumed it. Those who recognized the early signs of a hallucinogenic onset managed to stay calm and ride it out. Those who didn’t understand what was happening were, by all accounts, far less composed.

What Actually Happened That Night

The incident took place on August 8, 1996 — intended to be the final night of filming in Nova Scotia — and was extensively documented in a Vanity Fair retrospective. Director James Cameron reported feeling suddenly and deeply disoriented as the evening progressed. Bill Paxton, who passed away in February 2017 at the age of 61, described a scene of complete emotional chaos in a 1996 Entertainment Weekly interview — people laughing, crying, and vomiting simultaneously, with an overwhelming wave of anxiety hitting him out of nowhere.

Once the affected cast and crew were taken to a nearby hospital, the scene there became equally surreal. Set decorator Marilyn McAvoy described patients refusing to stay in their assigned cubicles, people wheeling themselves at speed down the hallways, and an atmosphere of barely contained frenzy throughout the emergency department.

Cameron himself recalled the hospital as a scene of near-theatrical disorder — people moaning, collapsing on gurneys, and his director of photography Caleb Deschanel leading a group of crew members down the hallway in what Cameron described as a highly energetic and vocal conga line. He added, with characteristic understatement, that it was not the kind of thing anyone could make up.

Who Was Spared

The film’s two central stars — Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio — were not filming that day and were completely unaffected by the incident. Zane also noted that Gloria Stewart, who played the older Rose in the film, avoided the situation entirely by not eating the chowder.

With a level of humor only possible in retrospect, Zane joked that the incident might actually have been the true secret behind the film’s extraordinary success.

Titanic went on to become one of the highest-grossing films in cinema history and won 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture.