Kate Winslet: Kiss Us, Kate

With Titanic as her calling card, Winslet is flooded with offers at the moment. "Once your foot's in that door, you don't need to agonize so much over the struggle to find work," she admits. "But, with some of my friends, my family, it's heartbreaking because they're still trying to get that foot in the door. I have the luxury of being able to choose what I think is the right thing for me. It's like that fantastic speech Frances McDormand made at the Oscars, 'We women have the choice.' Being in that position, the ability to choose things, thrills and amazes me."

It wasn't always so, of course. Wasn't she up for William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet? "I tested for it three years ago, when Leonardo was definitely already doing it, but I knew, reading it, I was too old for the role--too old inside."

The Crucible? "I was desperate to do it, phoning all the time, asking, 'What's going on?' I was obsessively jealous that it was always going to be Winona [Ryder] as Abigail, but she did it wonderfully, even if that was my dream role. On Oscar night for Sense and Sensibility, this huge bouquet of roses arrived with a note saying, 'Good luck tonight. I think you're wonderful. Much love, Winona Ryder.' It was so sweet and lovely, I was like, 'My God, Winona Ryder sent me flowers!'" Woody Allen's movie, which Ryder took when Drew Barrymore dropped out? "It was a tremendous honor to meet him, but it was a minute-and-a-half or something, and he smiled, asked me a few questions, took my Polaroid, and that was that. Leonardo's having such a great time with him, but I knew that, with Judy Davis and Ken Branagh already in it, he wouldn't cast another Brit as an American." She philosophizes, "I've never sat in a movie theater going, 'Shit! Why didn't I do this movie?' Regret isn't good. Every decision one makes in life is made for a reason or another. Whenever something bad happens, I go, This is happening for a reason, or, This is going to teach me something."

Winslet scrunches back in the couch and says, sighing, "Every time I go to work now, I go through this suicidal saga of, 'I'm terrible,' 'I'm fat,' 'I'm ugly,' 'I can't do it anymore.' I get paranoid. It's so incredibly encouraging when people say they like me and my work, but it almost frightens me because I think, 'Oh, shit! I have to live up to it, not disappoint them.' I don't necessarily think of myself as particularly good or attractive, and I'm very aware of how you can burn out in this business. It's like 'too much, too young.' And there's so much worry among some actors about how something is going to do at the box office. Greed is a nasty thing. I'm sure it's very easy for actors to become greedy once they're handed everything on a plate and can pick and choose from any entree, appetizer or dessert they want. Hugh Grant once said to me, 'How well did Heavenly Creatures do at the box office?'"

(Here Winslet imitates Grant so perfectly, you can practically see his hair spilling over his forehead.) "When I said, 'I have no idea,' he was shocked, saying, 'Well, don't you read the figures?' No, I don't. To get all caught up in the business side of it frustrates me. That's one major reason why I really don't want to play only big leads in films or only strong female figures. I'm more than happy to play a part in a smaller project if I really love the script, the material."

Which is exactly what she's doing at the moment. Winslet's next film will be the small-scaled Hideous Kinky, based on the novel by the real-life granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, in which she plays a hippie mom who ran away to spend years in Morocco with her kids in the early 70s. "Neither my agent here nor in London got the script at all or why I wanted to do it," she says about Hideous Kinky. "The mother I play is very carefree and not necessarily as domestic as a normal parent would be. My agent said, 'Don't you think people are going to say, "Why is she playing this woman who's basically not a very good mother?" When agents don't like what I like, I have to say, 'You have to listen to me and this is what I want to do. I'd really appreciate it if you would work on this and help me. This is falling at a really important time in my life.--a time I feel I should go and do it.' I'm an actor. I have to do just that. The other, business side of that--doing publicity, choosing things that may get a big audience--is a totally different thing."

I tell Winslet she strikes me as a terrific combination of good sense and age-appropriate inner chaos, to which she responds, "Personally, morally and emotionally, I sometimes feel I'm in complete turmoil. I really don't know who I am. I still feel like I've got a hell of a lot to learn, you know? But I would hope not to know who I am at 22, right?" Right she is, and, whatever she learns, she'll be fascinating to watch all along. Very Winslet of her, I think.

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Stephen Rebello interviewed Jennifer Lopez for the February issue of Movieline.

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