Kate Winslet

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Ten years ago, Kate Winslet was already garnering critical favor in both Britain and Hollywood with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod for the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility. Immediately after, she made an enormous international breakthrough with the enormous success of 1997's Titanic, garnering Winslet her first Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Ever since, Winslet star has continued to shine. She has garnered subsequent Oscar nominations, one for Best Supporting Actress in 2002's Iris and two for Best Actress in 2003's Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and 2005's Little Children, making her the youngest actress to already garner five Oscar nominations.

Now at the age of 33, she has reunited with the co-star of her most legendary film, Leonardo Dicaprio in Sam Mendes's newest film Revolutionary Road. Kate first shared with us his feelings once again doing a movie with his most legendary co-star once again and if anything had changed in working with him since the days of Titanic.

'Any major surprises, I think that he's nicer than he was, if that's possible, he's funnier than he was, even if that's possible, and he's a better actor than he was, even if that's possible,' Winslet states, 'Quite honestly, playing Frank and April Wheeler, there was a surprise everyday. I just love so much playing some of the difficult scenes with Leo knowing that because of the trust of two people having known each other for so long that there were just no boundaries.'

'That was a real gift to have as two actors playing these parts,' she continues, 'And to be able to do off-camera dialogue for him and having to stop myself from crying because I was seeing someone for whom I have so much respect, doing things as an actor that I never seen him do before and more of his face into positions that I never seen him do before as an actor and as a person. There were many moments like that pretty much every single day.'

This new outing from the pair is as 180 degrees as one can get from the tragic storybook romance of Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater. In Revolutionary Road, based on the 1961 novel by Richard Yates, DiCaprio and Winslet play Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple in the 1950's who struggle with their deteriorating sense of idealism and their marriage. Winslet discusses the more dysfunctional relationship she and Leo now find themselves playing opposite one another this time.

'I think it's a combination of many things,' she believes, 'Yes, it is an inability to communicate or certainly more to do with the fact that they have forgotten to communicate with each other for some time. It's only when April turns around to him and there's, 'We can't go around pretending that this is the life we wanted,' that both are truly forced to question exactly that. For April, it's very clear this isn't the life she expected for herself and Frank is then forced to question it, too.'

'And it's at that point that they realize that maybe they aren't the people that they were when they first met and they are wanting different things from life,' Kate adds, 'And April is ultimately determined to find happiness, to feel something again, other than what she has that she's preparing to risk everything to get that, which to me, is a very heroic act and not a cowardly one.'

Winslet's character's yearning is to live in Paris. She discussed for us what she felt April's dream symbolizes in the film.

'Paris, for April, represents possibility, hope, and change, something to hope for,' she believes, 'The notion that she might be forced to live a life without possibility is just the kiss of death, ultimately.'

Despite her new character's more repressed, struggling role in the relationship that centers Revolutionary Road, Kate believes April has many positive attributes, even as she finds herself having to make a fairly brutal and, for the time, very life-risking choice.

'I feel that April is very much a heroine, I do,' she insists, 'I didn't feel that she's a coward and neither did I feel she was suicidal and I certainly didn't think she was bipolar. But I do believe that this was a woman taken to an emotional brink in her pursuit of happiness and I think it literally sent her mad, I really do.'

'And in giving herself an abortion, I don't believe that she was intending to kill herself, but she knew that it was a very big risk and there's something incredibly courageous and stoic about that,' Winslet continues, 'It's a fine line. And it's very difficult to try and play those two things simultaneously.'

Winslet also discussed for us the struggles her character, an unhappy wife in a time that preceded the rise of the feminist movement.

'One of the things that was so touching and moving to me about April Wheeler was that this was a woman who seemed to me to be like so many women of that time, whose interior world was so much bigger than her exterior world,' Kate says, 'Frank and April, they do see themselves as being slightly more glamorous than everyone else and in many ways, they think that that is the one thing actually that has kept April going, living this life that she's living that she really is unhappy living.'

'She's somehow managed to convince herself that everything's OK because they are not like the Campbells, they are not like the Givingses, they're just a little bit better than everybody else,' she adds, 'And she says to Frank, we can't going on pretending that this is the life we wanted. And in many ways, she is incredibly brave, just even to admit that to herself. I think that's the thing is that so many people, so many women were coasting along and living this lie because they had no other option. Prescription medications and sneaky beverages before midday all began around that time.'

However, playing such a role, Kate adds, was not without its struggles.

'I'm very different to her and I had to find a way of understanding her and loving her, which I did,' Winslet explains, 'And which I do, which was not always easy. She's a very complex and complicated woman who has no emotional outlets. I'm lucky I get to express my passions and the spirited side of myself and the strong-willed side of myself through the job that I do. I was so moved by April's lack of emotional outlet and it was crushing to me and very difficult to play.'

Directing the film is British director Sam Mendes, whose previous films include the Oscar-winning American Beauty and The Road To Perdition, as well as Jarhead. Winslet has also been married to Mendes for five years and this is their first film together. She shares with us the most exciting and rewarding aspects of working with him.

'I think that I felt ultimately one of the most memorable scenes that we shot together was the breakfast scene at the end of the film,' she recalls, 'Because I remember reading it on the page and thinking how the hell are we going to be able to get through this. How on earth were we going to do this' And everything about that scene took me by surprise from the way that it was lit in that incredibly dark, beautiful, naked way, the way that Sam really steered us through that scene with these very difficult emotions.'

'Rhythmically, the scene is very, very delicate,' Kate continues, 'And I remember feeling very strongly that Leo and I were very much in Sam's hands when we were shooting that scene because it was so difficult for us to have a sixth sense of what it needed to be. All we knew was that we had to be very honest about every word that we were saying and we just had to trust in Sam so completely because emotionally it was just very difficult to get through.'

Kate continues to mine Oscar gold, as buzz has already been generated for possible Best Actress nomination for Revolutionary Road, as well as a Best Supporting Actress nod in The Reader. She spoke to us of her great appreciation at her continuing to be recognized by the Academy.

'I feel very proud of both of these films and proud to be a part of them and quite honestly, I don't know how categorizing of actors even happens,' Winslet says, 'I really truly don't and it's nothing to do with me. It's incredible to be talked about in that way and I can only hope I live up to the expectation and I hope the work speaks for itself. It's my job to make myself available to support both of these films equally.'

However, while she may continue to enjoy performing movies and watching them, Winslet admits she is not deeply particular in what kind of films she enjoys most.

'My answer to that is in many ways probably quite boring, because I'm actually not a huge movie buff,' Kate says, 'I love movies, I love watching movies, absolutely, and I'm very excited this time of year when all the screeners go out because I have weeks and weeks and evenings in of watching inspiring work.'

'But I don't know, I really don't know how to answer that question, anything that's entertaining, anything that's moving, anything that's thought-provoking,' she continues, 'In movies, those are the things I look for and those are the films my friends are in or the things my friends have made, quite frankly, actually.'