Kate Winslet : USA Today interviews 19-24 June 2015 #KateWinslet

Kate Winslet aims to be ‘creatively alive’
Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY 3:26 p.m. EDT June 24, 2015

Kate Winslet, starring in ‘A Little Chaos,’ turns 40 this fall and plans a festival of parties. Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY

VIDEO AT THE LINK BELOW:

(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)

 

6/18/15 1:44:12 PM — — Video with Kate Winslet for A Little Chaos. The movie opens June 26. — Photo by Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY staff ORG XMIT: RD 133244 Kate Winslet 06/18/2015 [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

6/18/15 1:44:25 PM — — Video with Kate Winslet for A Little Chaos. The movie opens June 26. — Photo by Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY staff ORG XMIT: RD 133244 Kate Winslet 06/18/2015 [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

NEW YORK — When Alan Rickman called Kate Winslet about shooting extra scenes on a Saturday for their period drama, A Little Chaos, she initially said yes.

Then, life intervened. “She said, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I can’t, we’ve got a baked bean party.’ A baked bean fight on the field outside their house,” says Rickman, who directed and plays King Louis XIV in the film (in theaters and on demand Friday). “She brought in pictures. The party was them throwing baked beans at each other.”

For Kate Winslet, life happens

To him, that’s Winslet personified. “She doesn’t care about dirt and muck. She wipes her own rear end. And she uses the toilets used by the extras.”

Winslet is neither a blowhard nor a braggart. Ask her about playing a widowed horticulturist hired to create gardens at Versailles, and she sets you straight about her green thumb, or lack thereof.

How these A-listers got their lucky breaks

“I wish I could tell you that I was a great gardener. I’m not. I wish I could tell you that I had learned things about gardening through playing this role, but I didn’t. I love gardens, for sure. Every year I seem to say to myself that this year, I’m going to learn how to speak French and I’m going to learn how to garden. And I don’t do it,” she says. “This year, I did manage to get all my herbs out of their pots on the windowsill and properly planted in the garden. I tried.”

Why now? Because Winslet turns 40 in October, and for her, life is lush and fruitful.

“This was a woman who was surviving, coping really
“This was a woman who was surviving, coping really well, and being passionate in her life,” Kate Winslet says of her character in ‘A Little Chaos.’ (Photo: Alex Bailey, Focus Features)

“Working in film is like having a baby. There’s never the right time. It’s always a crazy juggle. The reason, largely, is actually approaching 40 and wanting to feel creatively alive,” she says. “I want to go rocketing to 40 and feeling really good about the things I’ve done. I’ve had some wonderful opportunities that are impossible to turn down.”

She lives outside London with her three kids from three marriages — Mia, 14, with director Jim Threapleton; Joe, 11, with director Sam Mendes; and Bear, 18 months old, with husband Ned Rock’nRoll.

Kate Winslet explains son’s name, Bear Blaze

“There’s a lot of working together with their dads. We really all get along great. You just do your best,” she says. “The kids are honestly fantastic, normal, sweet kids. That’s one thing people say about my children, which I’m incredibly proud of: They’re so kind and so normal.”

In ‘A Little Chaos,’ Kate Winslet plays an unassuming mastermind who designs the breathtaking gardens at Versailles. VPC

Professionally, she wants to continue pushing herself. She plays a glam seamstress in her upcoming The Dressmaker.

She’s most excited about Steve Jobs (Oct. 9), in which she plays Apple executive Joanna Hoffman alongside Michael Fassbender as Jobs. Winslet e-mailed a photo of herself in a dark wig to producer Scott Rudin to put herself in consideration for the part. That’s how an Oscar winner rolls.

Kate Winslet feels ‘incredibly lucky’

“What did I have to lose? I felt lucky to be in a position where I had Scott Rudin’s e-mail in my address book and I could use that contact,” she says. “I love unconventional ways of doing things. I’ve never had an ego.”

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For Kate Winslet, life happens

Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY 3:33 p.m. EDT June 24, 2015

NEW YORK — Kate Winslet rolls up her black shirt and points to her belly, which has that muffin top familiar to most moms.

“Look, I still have the skin, you see. I do. Who gives a (flip)? That’s hard won. I love all those things,” says the mom of Mia, 14; Joe, 11; and Bear, 18 months old. “Everything is really pronounced when you’re pregnant.”

Kate Winslet aims to be ‘creatively alive’

In fact, Winslet was expecting son Bear, from her third marriage to businessman Ned Rocknroll, when she shot her latest film, the period drama A Little Chaos (in theaters and on demand Friday).

“I quite the loved the fact that I was in the early stages of pregnancy, because I had a little bit of a doughiness to me. I was a little bit more voluptuous. My boobs were out of control. My husband was thrilled. It gave her more oomph,” she says of her character Sabine, a gardener working in the royal court at Versailles. “I had to make sure she was palpable.”

The Oscar winner is approaching her 40th birthday on Oct. 5 with the same zest with which she’s devouring her chicken salad, doused in dressing.

“I have felt this desire to have real diversity in the roles I’ve been given the opportunity to play,” she says. “My domestic life has really lent itself to those things being possible. We can really be a little unit. No one has to get left behind.”

Alan Rickman, who directed Chaos and plays King Louis XIV, reunited with Winslet 20 years after co-starring with her in 1995’s Sense and Sensibility. How has she changed over the years?

“It’s 20 years of children and marriage and life. What does that do to people?” he says. “She comes to the set as a very strong, focused but free individual. Her sense of humor doesn’t desert her and there’s no frills. With Kate, you see that everything is real. Nothing has happened, except life.”

Winslet is one of the very few actresses who appears to be aging naturally and gracefully. She wiggles her eyebrows and crinkles her forehead to shoot down any rumors of Botox.

Kate Winslet blasts those Botox rumors

“Look. I mean, seriously? Print that I did that for you. Write that,” she says. “It does irritate me when people suggest I’ve had that stuff done. I don’t want people to think I’m a hypocrite.”

In ‘A Little Chaos,’ Kate Winslet plays an unassuming mastermind who designs the breathtaking gardens at Versailles. VPC

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