Shipping Out

Kate Winslet tells why she left Hollywood after 'Titanic' -- She took 'Hideous Kinky' to keep herself sane

by Josh Wolk, April 16, 1999

 

What does an actor do after starring in the most-expensive and highest-grossing movie of all time? Sure, some may call Disney and demand $20 million to star in the next Michael Bay movie. But after ''Titanic'' Kate Winslet dashed off to Morocco to star in the low-budget $3 million ''Hideous Kinky'' (which opens today in New York and L.A., and nationally on April 23). ''After 'Titanic' I did want to do something that was smaller and completely different,'' Winslet tells EW Online. ''It was very important to me to let people know that I wasn't just going to ride on the crest of the wave forever and just do lots and lots of Hollywood movies. And I didn't want any of my fellow Brits to go, 'Oh, thanks Kate Winslet for just bypassing all the British movies.'''

Winslet, 23, didn't merely have her fellow Brit-izens' feelings in mind when she accepted the ''Kinky'' role of the eccentric-bordering-on-irresponsible expatriate mother who drags her young children on adventures around Morocco: She also had selfish motivations. She committed to the film just prior to the release of ''Titanic'' when she was getting a sinking feeling about the impending publicity. ''I really wanted to ground myself because I knew things were going to go bananas when 'Titanic' was released,'' she says. ''People said, 'You know, this is really going to change your life.' And I thought, 'Well, I don't want my life to change. I like me, and I like the way things are.' I knew doing 'Hideous Kinky' would be grounding before all the madness of 'Titanic' happened.''