Kate Winslet
On The Rosie O'Donnell Show

April 13, 1999

Rosie: Our next guest, a two-time Oscar nominee, her most recent nomination, of course, for her role in a tiny little film, not a lot of people saw it. It’s called Titanic, take a look.

--clip of the flying scene--

--Rosie imitates flying--

Her latest film, Hideous Kinky, opens this Friday. Please welcome cutie-patootie Kate Winslet.

--Kate enters, smiling, waving, blowing kisses--

Rosie: How are you? Well, hi Kate.

Kate: Hello!

Rosie: Your hair looks beautiful!

Kate: Thank you very much! Do you like it everybody?

--looks at audience, audience claps and cheers--

Rosie: Was it a relief to cut it off? Have you always had long hair?

Kate: I-I just . . . It actually just needed a damn good cut, you know?

Rosie: Yeah, yeah.

Kate: Just before Christmas it was getting really kind of . . . just messy and not looking quite right and I just thought, ‘chop it off!’

--makes scissor motion with fingers--

Rosie: Chop it off.

Kate: Chop it off.

Rosie: And was it an emotional thing for you? Cause a lot of people go through a little . . .

Kate: No! I was like, get the champagne out, chop the hair off . . . I loved it! I couldn’t wait to get rid of it!

Rosie: Well, it looks fabulous.

Kate: Thank you.

Rosie: It’s lovely to see you and congratulations on your marriage!

Kate: Thank you very much!

Rosie: You’re welcome. I saw . . .

--big cheer from audience--

--Kate waves to Carrie and Bella--

I saw the pictures in InStyle magazine and how cute is your little hubby? Where’d you meet him? What’s the deal?

Kate: He’s so beautiful and wonderful! Um, we met on Hideous Kinky.

Rosie: Which is the movie you’re here to talk about.

Kate: Which is the movie I’m here to talk about. We met on the set and he arrived a little bit late because he was working on something else back in England. And this, um, this beautiful person turned up and my reaction was ‘oh no, oh no’ ‘cause I just knew . . . I knew that something was going to happen and he says that he sort of felt the same way. And, uh . . .

Rosie: Is he an actor as well?

Kate: No, he’s not. He was, um, an assistant director on the movie. So he was, you know, one of the crew members and stuff. But it was all love under the sun and we came home together and got married a year later, so it’s brilliant.

Rosie: And you had your big wedding reception in a pub?

Kate: We did! A good old English pub!

Rosie: Give me a high five on that!. . .

--Rosie and Kate give each other high fives, audience cheers--

You had kegs of beer and potatoes and everything?

Kate: We did, we had kegs of beer, we had mulled wine, ‘cause it was quite cold and we wanted to kind of keep it a little bit Christmasy and things.

Rosie: Right.

Kate: And, uh, we had all of that . . . and we had bangers and mash, which is what . . . people keep picking up on this thing and I think they just think, well, we’re all big porkers, eating all these bangers and mash. But they chose to ignore the fact that we actually had other things, like salad nichoise and tartes and all these kind of things.

Rosie: What is bangers and mash?

Kate: Bangers and mash is . . . it’s an English dish and it’s basically piles of mash potatoe and big fat sausages and loads of gravy all over the top.

Rosie: Sounds delicious!

Kate: Incredibly unhealthy!

Rosie: Would you bring some for me next time?

Kate: Certainly, will do.

Rosie: (attempting a British accent) A little bangers and mash...

--Kate laughs--

Now, have you gotten over the whole Titanic swell? There’s no way you could have prepared yourself for the kind of attention that you got.

Kate: No, I know. I mean, so many people said to me, ‘you know, your life’s going to completely change when this movie comes out’ and all these things. And I just thought, ‘well, you know, I don’t - I don’t want it to all change’ and ‘what do you mean it’s going to, you know, get bigger?’ and things and . . . It was just so extraordinary and I think the thing now that I fear is . . . it’s never going away, it’s still there, and it did so much for so many people. I think that’s the thing, because the response was so warm and so huge that, uh, it’s . . . it’s very rewarding for me to sort of sit here and now feel that that’s something that’s going to go down in history.

Rosie: It definitely will.

Kate: And that I was in it! You know, and I see it and I think, ‘well, oh, that’s me! That’s me. I was in that film!’ It’s very strange.

Rosie: Little girls were crazy about it!

Kate: I know.

Rosie: I mean, my friend’s daughter saw it, like, fourteen times in the movie theater or something.

Kate: I know, I know. Well, I heard this. I heard that someone had seen it twenty-five times and little girls having Titanic parties. I just - I just found that completely amazing.

Rosie: Have they, like, bombarded you on the street?

Kate: People do come up and say, you know, lots of lovely things. And I always think that’s actually a really brave thing to do, ‘cause, I think, oh, I’d never - I’d never dare to approach somebody. I’d always be too nervous. But, there were some little girls that came to my house the other day. And, uh, and I’d been out and they stayed around and stuff. And my husband said, ‘oh, you know, she’ll be back later and maybe do you some autographs’ which I did and they gave me these presents. And one thing was a box of - a bunch of flowers. The other thing was a little kind of fluffy mouse, where you pulled the tail and hopped around the table. And the third thing was a blow-up sofa. A big blow-up sofa! And I didn’t know . . . I just thought, ‘well, what am I supposed to do with this blow-up sofa?’ And, uh, and I haven’t blown it up yet; we don’t sort of have room for it.

Rosie: But they waited at your house and you went and you greeted them and took their gifts and gave them autographs?

Kate: Yes, yeah, absolutely!

Rosie: That is so nice of you! It’s so totally un-American! We would have called security and had them removed! You know what I mean?

Kate: (laughs) They were completely harmless. And they’d . . . apparently they’d met on the internet and they’d taken this day and they decided they were going to get together and come to my house and all of these things. And so, you know, what could I do? Just - I thought it was a wonderful thing, really.

Rosie: That’s so funny. I remember when I saw the movie (this tells you how I’ve really got my finger on the pulse of, you know, American pop culture) . . . I saw the movie, I said, ‘great performances, amazing actors and actresses. It’s a little long, I don’t think it’ll make a lot of money.’

--Kate laughs--

The biggest, most successful film of all time, I couldn’t believe it! You know? I’m such a loser, I’m like, ‘I don’t know . . .’

Kate: Well, no one . . . I mean, no - no one really knew what was going to happen with it. And, coming towards the end of the filming, you know, people were sort of saying, you know, ‘this is going to be big, this is going to be big’ and I started to feel like, well, maybe it is actually. Maybe, you know, I’ve done this movie and perhaps it is going to be a huge success. And, and, look what happened.

Rosie: Look, here you are, it’s so wonderful. But, I - I loved you before . . . Heavenly Creatures, your first movie. How’d you get that role?

Kate: I got that role . . . I was sent it with a whole bunch of girls from an agency that I was with at that time. And, uh, and I’d read the synopsis of the story and I was with my dad, in the car, and I was reading this and I was going, ‘wow, Dad, this is great!’ And he said to me, ‘you’ll do it, you’ll do it.’ And I thought, ‘God, that’s what . . . that’s . . . I’ve got to have that belief then.’ So, I went for it right down the line. And then, I was working in a deli at the time. I didn’t have any money and I thought, ‘well, you know, I’ll just, uh . . . I’ll just do this part-time job.’ In the middle of making a sandwich, a pastrami sandwich, for somebody and the phone rings - rang and someone went, ‘Kate, your agent’s on the phone.’ (talks excitedly) Dropped everything! Someone else finished making the sandwich. Ran to the phone and my agent says, ‘you’ve got the job’ and I just went, ‘AHAHAHA!’ and just burst into tears, dropped the phone, and had to go home early. I couldn’t make any more sandwiches after that, because I was so excited!

Rosie: (laughs) And then you were on your way. Well, your latest film, Hideous . . .

Kate: Hideous Kinky.

Rosie: . . . Kinky is about, um, your travels in Morocco or something?

Kate: Absolutely right. It’s based on a novel by Esther Freud, which I believe is more well-known in England than it is here. And, uh, it’s auto-biographical. Esther, when she was young (when she was five years old), was taken to Morocco by her mother . . . and, um . . . with her - with her other sister. And it’s really about the time that they had there and what they were escaping from in London, which was kind of hardship and not having much money and not much, sort of, fun for the girls. And, uh, she just thought, you know, ‘time to change things’ and went out there. And it’s really about the experiences that they had, the people that they met and, uh, and what it kind of gives them as an experience and as an . . . as an adventure.

Rosie: And it seems as though it was kind of troubled. We have a scene here where you’re . . . a woman has stolen your pants?

Kate: Yes, this is true, this is true. They were . . . they lived in lots of different places. And in one of the - the lodgings that they stayed in, um, the next-door room was . . . um . . . two . . . they were actually prostitutes, occupying this room and they stole my pink trowsers and I wasn’t happy.

Rosie: That’s the clip we have . . . Hideous Kinky . . . take a look . . .Kate Winslet.

--Hideous Kinky Clip--

Rosie: (whispering to Kate) Are they?

Kate: (nods) Yeah. They are here.

Rosie: Hideous Kinky. It opens this Friday, all across the country. Now, where are they?

Kate: (waves and smiles) I’m waving at them. They’re right there. (pointing)

Rosie: The little girls who are in the movie, who play your daughters. They’re here, in the audience. Wave, you cutie-patooties...

--Bella (wearing a bindi on her forehead) covers her mouth--

--Carrie and Bella stand and wave to Kate and Rosie--

Look how cute they are! Adorable.

--Kate waves again--

...Now, Kate, will you stick around and try to win a game for our . . . uh, play a game and win some stuff for our audience?

Kate: Absolutely, will do!

Rosie: All right! Kate Winslet, right after this. Don’t go away.