Kate Winslet - Interview

Interview, Nov, 2000 by Lynda Obst

LO: No, you're not. This is what love is.

KW: Well, it's also a testament to the fact that what men want is not a stick.

LO: I'm sitting here holding a [magazine] quote from Mr. DiCaprio himself, who said to you. "Honey, you're always going to have that I'm-a-fat-girl thing; forget it, you're gorgeous." And it's so true, even from the model-hound himself. [laughs]

KW: I was at the Venice Film Festival with Holy Smoke, and rather than just report what I was wearing, some commentators had to add, "Kate was looking a little bit weighty." I'm constantly under a microscope. I can't imagine how Kirstie Alley must feel!

LO: And do you think that they do this to Sean Cannery or Harrison Ford?

EW: It's a joke. I was just watching The Green Mile, which was great. But you know Tom Hanks, he goes up and down [in size]...

LO: Um-hmm, all the time...

KW:... and people never have a go at him for it.

LO: Never. They can view him just through the lens of his acting--not through the lens of some unreachable, unhealthy gender prototype.

EW: Back when I was nineteen, there were times when I was so thin I would literally faint. And I would think, Why am I doing this? Why is it that I'm not eating? And I realized that it was because not eating made me feel as though I was inflicting such phenomenal discipline on myself.

LO: As you take on the role of producer, you will see some terrible things from the other side of the desk. I've sat in all-guy [casting] meetings, where women who are at a perfectly reasonable age for the part are dismissed as "too old." It's interesting being in that position. On one hand, you are suddenly vulnerable to information that you might be better off without. On the other hand, there's a way in which you can make a difference. Are you interested in producing as a way of controlling the material, or more in terms of your own life and schedule?

EW: I've always said one day it would be great to produce something, never thinking that I would be able to do it by myself. But the reason I got involved with Therese Raquin was, it was a book that I read at seventeen, and I sort of developed this kind of very heady sort of sweaty obsession with it.

LO: [laughs] Sounds great.

KW: I just became really addicted to it, in the way that you become addicted to, I don't know, cigarettes or chocolate. It just fed me in some way, and I read it over and over again. And a few years ago, having gained a little bit more knowledge, I thought, God, that book would make a brilliant film. And it just so happened somebody then said "Well, there's a script of it already." And because I had such an attachment to this story, I wanted to be involved with seeing the film made in the best possible way.

LO: And it's a wonderful thing to do with the leverage that you won from your hard work. It's interesting to watch the choices you've made in not, pardon the metaphor, being drowned by Titanic....

KW: Yeah. After Titanic, the temptation was to just do everything, 'cause it was all being handed to me on a plate. And I just couldn't believe that it was happening. I did Titanic because I absolutely loved the story, I loved the script, and I wanted to work with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jim Cameron. And those were the rules I would apply to anything, and I still do, not what profile the film is gonna have. In the wake of Titanic, it was so important to me to remember that I was (A) still young, (B) had so much still to learn, and (C), still have so much to learn.