INT: Kate Winslet

What
can I say about Kate Winslet? Seriously,
she is one of the most respected actresses working in

Hollywood

. Her work is consistently
brilliant including her charming performance in ETERNAL SUNSHINE AND
THE SPOTLESS MIND, her heartbreaking work in JUDE and if I name them
all you’d all stop reading…and did I happen to mention TITANIC,
HEAVENLY CREATURES and LITTLE CHILDREN, the one that may earn her an
Oscar nomination? Well, she
is also appearing in the latest Nancy Meyers rom-com called THE

HOLIDAY.
And yes, she is great in it.

I
got the chance to meet up with Kate at the Four Seasons in

Beverly Hills

recently. She spoke a little
about LITTLE CHILDREN and a lot about heartbreak.
She was just as charming and beautiful as you would expect
her to be. Am I gushing too
much? Probably…but trust me,
it’s for good reason. She
had a grace and quality about her and she spoke very highly of her
co-stars, Jack Black and Cameron Diaz.
And even a little about the legendary film actor Eli Wallach
whom she shares the screen with in what is the best part of THE
HOLIDAY
, in my humble opinion.

Kate
Winslet

I
was going to ask you, before we start; LITTLE CHILDREN has gotten
great reviews, people have been talking about you for an Oscar
nomination for this movie, and yet it seems like the public is leery
of this movie because of the pedophile kind of thing.
And I wonder if you think a movie where people don’t
necessarily go see it, that’s not a popular hit even as an art
film hurts its chances for recognition of the work done?

Well
the first thing I’d like to say is that character… the character
Ronnie, he’s a convicted sex offender and there’s a lot of
mystery surrounding what he has supposedly done.
He is accused of indecent exposure to a minor.
Now that could have been a sixteen year-old girl or could
have even been a sixteen year-old boy.
It’s deliberately left untold so it doesn’t fall into
something really grisly and sinister, you know.
But also I would say that Jackie Earl Haley gives this just
extraordinary performance and you feel nothing but complete sympathy
for this man.

But
I don’t know, in terms of the proper answer to your question, you
know, as an actor you can only hope that the work speaks for itself.
That’s all you can hope, you know, as soon as… I really
try and steer clear of the politics of box office figures and
what’s in the top ten and what’s not, and what are the best
reviewed and what isn’t. I
mean, I have always just paid little attention to that because my
job is to act and to do that as best as I can.
And if my perception of what I do gets warped by all the
other information, then I don’t think it’s healthy.

That
film and to a lesser extent this [The Holiday], and several other
very good movies coming out this season really use infidelity or
cheating as a theme on trying to… how movies are addressing this
these days. Do you have
any thought on, like these two films you’re in?
Or what it is as an overall subject for film?

Well
I think relationships will be eternally fascinating to people, you
know, and it just happened that I’m in two of these relationship
pieces at the end of this year.
But one thing I do wanna say about THE HOLIDAY is that it’s
interesting now talking about it and having seen it twice is that
it’s sort of not a “chick flick”, it’s very much a romantic
comedy, I mean I do really feel this is a… it’s a great date
movie precisely because it is about relationships and its about men
and women’s struggle with their emotions and heartbreak and
looking for the one and I think we’re all doing that, at some
point in our lives are looking for that special person.
It can be very, very hard to find in the struggle that you go
through emotionally and trying to find that person is something that
I think will always be fascinating to audiences.

What
did you love about this character?

I
think the thing I loved the most about Iris is that it was an
opportunity for me to play somebody who was emotionally complex,
because I do believe that she is.
But at the same time she’s such a good person, she really
is. She’s a very
decent, honest, English girl, you know, she has quite traditional
values and I’m like that myself also.
And it was really a pleasure to play somebody who I was able
to fully embrace and really adore; I mean I genuinely adored playing
this part.

There’s
a scene with Eli Wallach where she’s awestruck; in your time in
Hollywood have you ever had any of those moments where you’ve
connected with someone old Hollywood?

Most
definitely… and I’d end up sounding like sort of a ditzy fan if
I told you exactly who. No,
but when you’re nineteen years-old and you’re standing on the
red carpet with your parents at the Academy Awards, you’re
basically star struck by every single person who walks by you.
[Laughing] You know, my
dad and I were kind of, blatantly sort of pointing out the next
famous person to each other going, “WOW!
Look who it is!” I mean it’s incredible, it’s an
incredible experience and yeah, I mean of course I’ve absolutely
been star struck in my life. I
mean, it’s nice to be impressed by people I think. And I’ve been
very inspired by so many actors and actresses and continue to be.
It’s a wonderful privilege to get to meet some of those
people sometimes.

So
has there been anyone where you were, you know…

Whoopi
Goldberg. Yeah, she said
some very, very nice things to me when I was nineteen.
I’m not telling you what she said though. [Laughing]
That’ll be my secret. I’ve
got to have some of them.

Why
do you think that people do that unrequited love thing or hold the
torch for someone they never should have?

The
heart is an uncontrollable vessel, don’t you think?
If I had the answer to that question, I’m sure that not
quite so many people would go out and have their hearts broken in
ways that they do. I
mean, it’s just part of life, its part of life you know.
And I know so many people who’ve fallen for the wrong man,
so obviously, have been in love with the wrong person, actually men
and women.

In
fact a journalist we met yesterday [looking around the room] I’m
just checking to see if he’s (here) [Laughing]… a journalist we
met yesterday came in and said, “I love this film so much because
I was Iris for eight years.” And then told this extraordinary
story, and he had the triumphant moment when she finally kicks
Jasper out the door and it was just wonderful it was a man who said
that. And I think that,
unfortunately, having your heart broken seems to be very much part
of life. I don’t know
a single person who hasn’t had their heart broken at one point or
another and sometimes more than once.

How
have you dealt with heartbreak in the past?
Are you more like your character or Cameron’s [Diaz]?

Well
to be honest with you I think I experience kind of teenage
heartbreak. You know, in
my twenty’s not so much and so I could relate to Iris on that
level because I definitely went through that stuff as a teenager,
and who didn’t. I
mean, I was always falling for the wrong guy and I was the girl who
never got the guy, and certainly not the cute guy.
So I was no stranger to heartbreak and rejection by the time
I was eighteen, nineteen. But
I don’t know; when I was younger, probably a combination of both. I
mean, I’ve always been quite emotional but at the same time, when
something like that happens you have to find a way to move on I
think. And that’s what
I would do as a teenager, just kind of cry a lot and complain to
your friends and dust yourself off and carry on with your life.

Would
you say your kind of a drama queen when it comes to the break-up,
when you were a teenager and you said ‘I’d cry and talk to my
friends’?

I
remember one specific instance when I was fifteen and I had just
really fancied this guy who was – I think he was the same age as me,
sixteen maybe – and he just wasn’t interested at all.
And I do remember, Marianne Dashwood [her character from
Sense and Sensibility] style, you know, kind of wandering in rain,
crying, you know… [Laughing] hopelessly depressed and indulging in
the emotion of it all and a couple of days, later I thought, ‘Oh
God that was a waste of time’. [Laughter] And then I just got on
with it again.

Jack
Black is a pretty unconventional lead; can you just talk about
working with Jack’s particular energy?

Um,
I was thrilled when Jack was cast because when I read the script I
just couldn’t see anyone else playing Miles, he was so obviously
perfect. You know,
he’s a wonderful person, Jack… of course he’s funny and of
course he made me laugh in every minute of every day but he’s a
very grounded person and I think I was quite surprised by that.
You know, often with comediennes they’re so hard to access
and they exist in their own head a lot of the time, but Jack
wasn’t like that at all, he was very much part of the team.

And
he does have a really sort of sensitive, soft side to his nature and
I loved seeing that come through in this performance, because I feel
like we haven’t seen that with him before.
And I always like it when actors get the opportunity to, you
know, show a whole other side of themselves.
But it was great working with Jack, he was very professional.
We worked in a very similar way in the sense in that we both
really like to rehearse lines and scenes way ahead of time.
We were often found in corners preparing the scene we were
shooting the week after next.

You
have to be prepared and that was one thing I particularly found with
comedy, is that so much of it is about timing, and delivering the
line and the pauses for it in the right place.
That if you have the lines under your belt way in advance,
there’s so much more room to play and explore.
Because then you’re in a position where you’re not
reaching for your dialogue in any way, you know all that stuff,
it’s just about bringing things alive.
And it was great to have that with Jack because it meant that
the chemistry was very free and easy and relaxed, actually.
And the truth is, the chemistry that we sort of have on
screen, that was what we were like, that’s just exactly what we
were like at work.

What
was it like working with Eli Wallach?

Oh…
It was incredible. I
mean, it was completely incredible, the man is ninety years-old and
I would just look at him everyday and I would say to him everyday,
“I so hope I’m like you. I
so hope I’m still acting and still doing a good job and on a movie
set when I’m ninety years-old and not in a wheelchair somewhere…
or worse, not here at all.” I mean, that’s… he’s just
remarkable, he’s remarkable. And
he would sit me down between takes and he say, “I’m gonna tell
you another story.” And he would sit me down and he’d say,
“Now the thing about Marilyn [Monroe]…” And I’d be like, oh
[expressing excitement] and he’d just come out with these glorious
anecdotes.

Just
fantastic stories of experiences that he has had that were directly
useful in playing Iris, because she had that level of fascination
with Arthur, and I just had it, I just had it.
It was there everyday with Eli.
He was so wonderful and he knows his lines, I mean he knows
his lines and he’s as conscientious about getting his dialogue
right and giving a good performance as anyone else was on the film
set. And he has this
incredible energy and Nancy [Meyers] would say to him all the time,
she’d say, “Could you act a little more seventy?” [Laughter]
He’s just; he’s like a sixty year-old.
He moves around much, kind of, freer than you would expect a
person at the age of ninety to, he was just incredible…
incredible.

There’s
a great scene with the two of you where he say’s that you are a
leading lady and you need to stop being the best friend.
What do you think women can learn from watching that scene?

I
think most women consider themselves to be the best friend.
And it’s interesting because a lot of people have brought
this up, and I’ve genuinely asked my girlfriends, you know, how do
you feel… Oh God, I’m definitely best friend type.
I mean, just… most people are.
And I think that’s a self esteem thing you know; it takes a
seriously confident, self assured, self possessed individual to say,
“Yes, I’m the leading lady of my own life.”
But what I’d hope women would take away from that is that,
you know, when it comes to matters of the heart you have to be very
strong because it can be a pretty bumpy ride.

You
don’t share much screen time with Cameron Diaz in this movie, but
did you get to hang out with her much?
What was your favorite part of working with her and were you
a fan of her work?

I
look forward to working with Cameron Diaz one day. [Laughter] I
mean, Cameron is such a great girl, she genuinely is. She’s
completely without ego. She
isn’t a diva and she’s a very happy go lucky person, extremely
positive. And it was so
nice to be around that energy, but we didn’t have much time
together as you say, and the moments that we did have were just fun,
really, really fun. She’s
extremely hard working and she’s a great team member.
But our paths would cross, you know, sometimes we’d be
shooting, for example, the scene with Jack and I in the video store.
Cameron sort of happened to be around in the area and she
came by, and she was there for sort of, half of the shooting day.
And she was just giving support and making us all feel that
we were a part of the same thing together, you know, she was very
aware of that. And
she’s a truly fantastic person.

Have
you ever had a kind of, life changing vacation or holiday, like in
this movie?

Um…
no, not specifically, no, not life changing; I mean, I’ve been to
places that have really opened my eyes in a sense that… when I
went to India, someone said to me before going, ‘a little bit of
India goes a long way.’ I
was gone for three weeks, I think, when I was doing the film HOLY
SMOKE and I got to do a little preparation and research there.
And after two days I thought, my God, I am so ready to leave
now because it was just so much.
It was the biggest culture shock I had had in my life.
So I’ve certainly been to places that have been incredibly
eye-opening and inspiring but not specifically life changing.

How
long does it take you to recharge from your career?

I’m
in the middle of a year off… perfectly timed question. [Laughing]
But it’s not so much stepping away from Hollywood; we don’t live
in LA so I don’t feel that I’m right in the thick of this
industry. I’m very
much in the thick of my family and family life and so I do feel as
though I’m always one step outside of it anyway.
But I am in the middle of a year off right now just because.

What
about that cottage that your character lives in?
Is that like the Nancy Meyers plush fantasy of…?

I’m
telling you, that cottage… that cottage was so fantastic and I
promise you it exists. I
mean, places like that absolutely exist.
Friends of mine own places like that and I found it such a
pleasure to see England look so picturesque.
Because it does actually look like that in certain towns; you
know the town we shot it in, that’s what it looked like.
And that’s why tourists are so drawn to parts of the
English countryside, is to really go check out a fourteenth century
church because it’s really there.
Um, you know, it was just really lovely to see it, because
usually England in movies is portrayed as a very grey, cold place.
It’s usually raining and everyone’s depressed so it was
a… [Laughing] no, I just really thought it was great, and honestly
those places exist.

I
don’t know if you would agree with this but I find that romantic
comedies more than any other genre when they fail artistically are
more difficult to watch than any other type of genre.

It’s
a good thing that this one didn’t fail then, isn’t it?
[Laughter]

So
my question is did you find that you scrutinized this script that
much harder to be sure that you were associating yourself with
something that you could be proud of?

No,
I mean everything is very much a leap of faith and everything is a
risk regardless of the genre. But
I knew when I had met with Nancy and she told me she was writing
this script, I was very, very excited, couldn’t wait for her to
finish, couldn’t wait to read it because Nancy Meyers does
romantic comedies brilliantly I think, she really does.
The scripts are solid, more importantly you absolutely
believe in the characters and you really believe that that happens.

You
really believe… you feel like you know all of those people.
And the dialogue is incredibly intelligent, it’s not kind
of gag for gag sake, it always comes from somewhere, [it] comes from
an emotional, grounded place and that’s everything.
And that’s why they aren’t fluffy and they aren’t sort
of goofy and silly. They’re
real. And to be honest
with you, I always felt that I was in really, really capable hands.

Let
me know what you think. Send
questions and comments to [email protected].