Kate Winslet totalfilm.com Interview
"I have this habit of not winning a fucking thing!"
BY Jan 15th 2009 19:19PMFILED UNDER: Features
Dressed in jeans and a vest-top, hair bleached ash-blonde and pulled back in a ponytail, Kate Winslet sits in hubby Sam Mendes’ office in downtown Manhattan, confidently fixing us with cloudy grey-green eyes and tapping at her cigarette.
She’s here to talk about her career, but also to discuss the two roles that, judging by her current awards/noms tally, should finally see her win that much-nommed Oscar...
You’re renowned as a fearless actress but playing Hannah in The Reader is bold, even for you…
I knew I was going to have to raise my game. So I did something really mad. I rented a room, literally. If I’m in the house I’m washing up or tidying – I just can’t get myself out of it. So I had to isolate myself from 9 ’til 3 every day, to think, plan and read.
What were your instincts about the character of Hannah?
They were very different to other people’s. I realised I had to let it be OK for some people not to like her; I had to let it be OK for some people to want to see this woman locked up and the key thrown away.
And while it wasn’t my job to have people sympathise with her, it was absolutely my job to give people the option to understand her.
Did I understand her? Yes, I did. And I did sympathise with her – which is morally compromising to feel that way. But to say I sympathise with her does not mean I sympathise with SS guards. Absolutely fucking not.
Did you research the Holocaust?
I saw things that I cannot un-see, ever. There are images that will haunt me for life, that have left a fingerprint on my soul.
Which puts things in perspective, if and when the tabloids inevitably latch onto the ‘Kate sleeps with a 15-year-old boy’ story…
David’s not a kid. He was 18 [during filming] and he’s very much a young man. I didn’t feel he was a teenager or a child. It wasn’t a problem or difficult, no more than those scenes ever are for any actor.
The harder stuff was the very subtle emotional scenes between our characters, conveying that level of depth and the purity within the relationship. The love they share is extremely genuine.
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