Hosted by Clive Anderson, BBC, October 15, 1998
A: Are you used to it yet, this mega status?
K: Well I was just saying I'm really nervous, I was coming here going I really am not used to this, what do I say, what do I do?
A: Well you just talk about yourself and the film.
K: Oh no no no.
A: Possibly your rude about other people and lead to a story in the papers.
K: I think I'll let you do that.
A: Oh no no. (A bit of laughter and good banter).
A: So your going for water (Kate picks up her glass, and keeps it nearly all the time), water and you seem to go together.
K: So I bother and I you know don't think I will now fine.
A: Titanic, did you realise when you did the film that it was going to be such as success?
K: No I have to say that I had absolutely no idea I read the script and I thought god this is this is pretty amazing and was thrilled when Jim Cameron wanted me to do it. Then I arrive in Mexico and I see lots of water and lots of tanks and a very big ship and I just think wow!
A: You hadn't read that bit of the script?
K: No I hadn't really paid any attention to the boat bit. No.
A: What was it about the script that you thought it would be a great film, to be in a film with a boat that sinks oops god I've might have spoilt it for somebody.
K: Everybody in the world has seen it now.
A: Everybody in the world HAS seen it.
K: Yes I know, I wasn't supposed to go down with the ship, in fact I didn't Clive, if you remember that.
A: I know I was there I was awake right to the end.
K: Well done! (Laughter)
A: No I was rooting for you. Once the boat starts sinking, its spectacular isn't it.
K: Its amazing, totally amazing I mean I was in, you know, in floods of tears and gobsmacked by the end. And you know it was totally amazing.
A: Does were tears does floods?
K: He's so funny (laughter).
A: Not necessarily.
A: Were you so keen, phoning up the director and saying I must do this part?
K: Yes this is true, I did phone him up and I said "look, you know come on give us a go" and it happened, so I was …..(lost behind Clive's babbling).
A: Yes that's the way to do it. You phone up the director and badger him.
K: Not always, not always the way to do it but I just really believe that you know have one life and its short and if you want something you have to go for it. So I did.
A: And Leonardo DeCaprio was he a satisfactory co-star?
K: Oh you just have to ask me that question! Don't you!
A: I don't think he was right for it.
K: Does anybody want to ask me what it was like snogging Leo? (Addressed with open arms to the audience)
K: He's great he's great.
A: So what is it like to (chuckle) kiss…(trails off).
K: He's, Leo is really he's wonderful...
A: He's snoggable?
K: He's snoggable, yeah.
A: I think they should of have a good looking guy for that part.
K: No Leo, is Leo is one of my greatest friends now.
A: He was supposed to be a bit of a roughneck so shouldn't they possibly had a rougher tougher looking person, like Nigel Havers (not tough at all!)
K: Well he tried to, he was doing lots of trying to beef himself up a bit and make himself look a bit kind of more rough and ready. But he is very cutsie-cue and I don't think he can really leave that image behind at all. So no he's great Leo, very funny guy as well very, very funny guy.
A: I think you told me when the film was coming out, and you were saying that it was scary and cold and freezing. Were you just saying that or was it warm water?
K: No it really was, it really was freezing cold. And it was something that I said to Jim Cameron please don't heat the water loads because you know apart from turning into complete prunes after two minutes. You know its just not, we wouldn't of been able to get into it, you know genuinely get into that water sometimes there are on screen reactions that were haahaahaa and it was absolutely like that, it was so so cold .
A: I remember that bit!
K: It was so cold and sometimes it was a bit scary but the safety, the safety was pretty extraordinary so many kind of divers around us all the time making sure that we were okay.
A: It was a fantastic performance by you, especially that bit when your playing yourself as a hundred year old women. I thought that was very very good acting.
K: Yes, yes that's right I was nicely pruned I thought for that.
A: But is that the sort of film you like to do now, action movies with…
K: Well I mean its, this is an interesting conversation point really and so many people have asked me this question.
A: I'm sorry.
K: No no no no its nice to talk about it, because you know I'm English and so much British film is great and certainly this year and last year its really on the up and that's why I went and did Hideous Kinky which is, you know lower low budget British film and all shot in Morocco and that was you know four months after the end of Titanic and I had a great time and I want to keep doing that staying in England and working you know with British.
A: And British films don't tend to have the big effects, its more people sitting around in a drawing room going "its dreadfull isn't it. I can't speak about this".
K: No I think its important that you know some of this this young British funky energy is really seen much more and I want to be a part of that, you know.
A: Obviously Titanic is a big success but before that, I mean all your films have been pretty well successful, Sense and Sensibility was.
K: Thankfully yes!
A: And what I said about you and water, Titanic obviously had lots of water in it, Sense and Sensibility been a Jane Austen film...
K: Yep. Got very rained on.
A: You get rained on and you nearly die of a bad head cold and you were in Hamlet and you were Ophelia who obviously.
K: And I drowned.
A: Drowned. So is the some special thing in your CV -- very good with water.
K: No no no yes! No. No nothing like that at all I don't really know why that happens, I am a Librian and we are supposed to love water so and I swim all the time myself so I've god knows what the connection is but you know.
A: So you've mentioned you've gone on and you've already made Hideous Kinky.
K: Hideous kinky, which is should be out for release in a couple of months time.
A: And that's about Clement Freud or something.
K: No, no its the novel (laughter) written by Ester Freud and is a brilliant novel. You've got to read it, its really great.
A: You play the mother in this.
K: I do yes.
A: That's quite an age lift for you because you're fantastically young to be so...
K: I'm twenty-three now.
A: Well that is, to me to my mind fantastically young because you've been in so many movies.
K: Well I know I mean I, you know its a …you know I'm very aware of the fact that the position I in now professionally is very rare certainly in this country and I do really consider myself lucky, I do.
A: You've been making Holy Smoke in India and Australia.
K: Has been made in Australia.
A: So your playing an Australian in that?
K: Yes playing an Australian my first modern day film, I think I deserves a clap for that (she claps herself) She got out of her corsets, no I my first modern day film.
A: Were you in the New Zealand film, set in the nineteen fifties, which is practically modern day.
A: Nearly there, but no this is I can't actually tell you too much about it but I play a young suburban Sydney girl who goes off to India, originally on holiday, finds spiritual growth out there and her family come and freak out and think she's part of a cult and then she's introduced to Harvey Keitel's character who is a religious exorcising expert and then its very much about a relationship that develops between the two of them and its actually very funny
A: I see you obviously can't tell us too much about it.
K: I actually haven't (laughing) its a very complex thing. Am I allowed to drink this?
A: Off course you are, throwing it over me I always find exciting though, but no you drink as much as you like.
A: But you come a family of actors?
K:I do, my father, my grandparents, my older sister, my younger sister and then it sort of just goes on.
A: So what is that like at home, are you all sort of "Oh no I've burnt the toast" (high pitched)?
K: Darling! No its nothing like that at all , its really nice actually because we sort of keep each other going and because we all love it so much and I grew up with it you know its very much a sort of a way of life you know, and its sort of a, just another job just another days work , sometimes I ring mum and dad and say "Oh guess what you know I've got another job", I told them about Hideous Kinky or Holy Smoke and they say "oh great fantastic , listen just got to go the doorbells ringing", its very much like that which is great and its perfect
A: You've gone beyond just being an actor because you are a star, people write you up in the paper
K: But to me it feels really daft, I feel so odd, you know that people see me like that because I I'm not like that, you know.
A: There's was a poll I think this week that said you've got the most desirable body in the world or something.
K: They've got that wrong I think.
A: But do you think oh that's exciting or do you think this is getting ridiculous?
K: No I just think what a load of nonsense I really do, I do think its all a bit silly and you know sometimes you know and the thing I've had to adjust to this year is lots of paparazzi outside the house and things like that.
A: Actually outside your house?
K: Absolutely, lots of them.
A: So if you going to bring in the milk or whatever you do.
K: Oh yeah, I mean you know I pop over the road for a paper and a pint of milk and they there snapping away and I think hang on a second I just haven't even brushed my teeth yet, you know, its does get a bit irritating.
A: Breathe on them!
K: It will be "dragon breath Kate" the next day but no its irritating but at the end of the day you can't not do normal things.
A: No, but some people love that although they say otherwise but others will find it rather irritating. I mean you get sort of pictures of you, as you say in your local shop?
K: Oh god I don't care, you know the thing is you know you've got to get on with life, you know nothing is going to stop me going to Sainsbury's (Supermarket), no, absolutely not a very important part of life.
A: That should get you a free load of shopping this week I would of thought.
K: It doesn't actually, no afraid not.
A: What is, you know journalists writing you up saying "oh didn't like that dress, or that shape" does that get to you or do you think well?
K: No, I mean sometimes certainly at the beginning of the year there was a pretty tough period when they were being fairly nasty to me and I just thought that's not fair (big lip-sweet), but you know it happens it happens and people have said to me, you know just prepare yourself this kind of stuff will go on and Emma Thompson said all this stuff to me, she's a very close friend of mine and she said you know this is what's going to happen mate , and it did. You know it they hassled my family too which is that's when it really annoys me. I get upset but other than that you know I just ignore it and you know just have to get on and you really do.
A: You've been to the Oscars ceremonies twice, where that almost seems to be more put in to going to the oscar ceremony. You got to have the right dress, right hair
K: Oh god, its very exhausting, its very very exhausting and its my god its such a laugh because you arrive there and go "God there's all these famous people around me ". You know I am remember watching it on the telly when I was younger endlessly every year and just you know going "Oh wow! Look there's so and so" and you know you get there and go "god look mum, look there, look!"
A: But they're doing that to you, and they're saying "I used to be famous but there's that limey actress who..." (in strained American falsetto accent). "I tell you I'm fifty-three and I could of done that part".
K:I said to my mum and dad, I said just be prepared, you know that Titanic has been such a huge thing now there will be lots of shouting and Kate Kate this and all that you know and it all happens and its really amazing ,you stand there going "Oh wow, hello" (weakly), its just an odd an odd feeling but fascinating. An incredible incredible event to be at.
A: Now well Kate its been interesting obviously fascinating talking to you but may be someone in the audience who has a question for Kate Winslet?
Lady: Could we have a sample of your Australian accent please?
K: Oh no!! Oh no!
A: That's convincing that's exactly what they're like.
K: What can I say?
A: "Oh no I'm pregnant!"
K: No I'm not, no don't the headlines tomorrow the paparazzi will be outside my house.
A: But what's the...do you want to do that...
K: Okay, I've been doing a film in Australia. It's called Holy Smoke and its directed by Jane Campion and I'm in it and Harvey Keitel's in it and I hope that will do...(round of applause-her accent was pretty good, a bit like Kyle Minogue)
Lady: I just like to ask if you felt the love scene in Titanic was appropriate and did you use a body double? A: What for the love scene?!
K: That's a really interesting question. I did feel it was appropriate, yes because its an important point in Rose's life, you know she's really she's realising that she's going to go on this you know journey, whatever guide of journey you want to call it with Jack and you know I think she's addressing her maturity when that scene happens and no I didn't have a body double.
A: No, but you take your clothes for him to draw you first of all...
K: And I didn't have a body double for that either, many situps.
A: But for the modern actress today virtually every role mysteriously does require a nude scene.
K: I know I know.
A: Are you used to that yet?
K: I am used to that now. I am. First I tell you when I first, my first ever nude scene was when I did Jude with Christopher Eccelstone and I was petrified I was so nervous and I said to, I mention her again, but I phoned Emma the night before and I said "What do I do?" and she said I promise you, you'll feel really liberated afterwards and I did. I felt so good I felt so proud of myself.
A: Was that a bit of a surprise because Jude in obviously based on a Thomas Hardy novel and you don't really associate Thomas Hardy with nudity exactly.
K: No you don't.
A: There's some strong stuff in it...
K: I think its very important about period films in general that you know that they not all corseted and everything and lets face it, you know, even when people were alive in 1895 they still took their clothes off.
A: Did they?
K: They still had sex, it just one of those things. I think its really important that they are brought into period films so that people can understand them much more because I think you know...
A: There's quite a gruesome birth scene in that film.
K: Yes there was. I know, that was very funny, prosthetics I can tell you. God we laughed, we really laughed.
A: Oh what a sad film that is.
Lady: There's been a lot of pictures of you in the papers recently talking about weight fluctuations. Is that true Kate? Or are they just made up?
K: What? Weight fluctuations how?
Lady: There's been sort of comparison pictures of like before Titanic, at Titanic, after Titanic with weight fluctuations, is this true Kate?
K: Are we all sick of the weight thing, we're all sick of the weight thing. I'm a normal human being we all go up and down, you know, just because I'm an actress doesn't mean I going to look like a stick. I'm healthy, I exercise and that's the way I see it. The weight stuff that goes on in the papers just makes me ill because there are so many young girls out there whose minds are being so messed up by this and I just think it is really upsetting and it should stop.
A: Well there you are. (Big round of applause)
A: I presume that's been answered anyway, there's a poll that has you as the favourite.
K: Well see again that you know I mean as nice as that is. I still do find it you know a little bit irritating that you...Why do we keep talking about women's bodies all the time especially actresses? You know I've gone from you know being very large when I was younger to being ridiculously thin, when to the point I was fainting. And now...
A: Why were you doing that? Was that because you felt you had to be thin.
K: It's a youth, you know, no it wasn't actually that. Is I just think its just a youth thing when your seventeen eighteen and nineteen. You don't know where your going and your hormones are going absolutely bananas on you. And you know its um I don't even know why that happens but I'm better now. (Big big smile)
Man: Have you been on any cruises since the Titanic?
K: I've never been on one cruise in my life.
A: Well you wouldn't frankly I mean with all respect , I would love to meet you virtually anywhere except on a big boat.
A: It was nice talking to you, thank you for joining us...KATE WINSLET!!
K: Thank you, thank you
(Big round of applause)
(Kate looks around the studio looking a bit in awe).
Transcribed by BOB.