She's not fat and still talks to Leo. Meet the very normal Kate Winslet

'My agents and manger went mad after Titanic. I was offered all these big movies and fab photo spread, but I was cautious. My follow-ups to Titanic weren't huge productions, but that's what I wanted. I met Jim [Threapleton, her husband] on Hideous Kinky, and got my most challenging role ever in Holy Smoke. Things have turned out well.'

So says Kate Winslet, who has chosen work over money. While her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio banked #20 million for The Beach, Kate rejected big Hollywood offers (among them the Gwyneth Paltrow role in Shespeare in Love). Instead, she has made unusual films for very little. 'I've never allowed myself ambitions,'she explains. 'Things have just fallen into place. Not a day passes that I don't think I've been lucky. Luck gets you the job', says Kate, brushed her cropped, blond-streaked locks out of her eyes.

Interviewed after the premiere of Jane Campion's Holy Smoke, Kate obviously has other priorities than becoming a HOllywood star. Instead of gushing about the film, she speaks movingly of how her life has changed since marrying Jim: 'It's brilliant being married. I'm lucky being allowed to love someone this much, but I don't bring him to industry parties. It would be a big bore and I don't want him to be "the husband of the star" Still, I do want him there at screenings. He's proud of me, and that's something we can share.'

Kate met Jim in NOvember 1997, on the set of Hideous Kinky. 'One day, a new assistan director was hired,'she recalls with a grin. 'When I met him, I said, "He's the most gorgeous guy I've seen." I knew within the first hour I'd be with him for the rest of my life.'

Within six months, Jim asked Kate to be his wife. Soon after, she left for a remote part of Australia to film Holy Smoke. It was four moths of misery. 'We were both in bloody tears,'she admits. 'People told us it would pass quickly, but that was crap. It was hell.'

During the filming, Kate racked up an enormous phone bill: 'In the day, I couldn't speak to him because the mobile would lose any signal. It was awful. When I got back at night, Jim would have left me a dozen messages. Then, we talked through the night.'

So, what attracted her to Holy Smoke? 'I loved the script and character, I admired Jane [Campion, her director], I wanted to work with Harvey [Keitel, her costar], and the sotry was interesting and brave,'she says. 'People go for the safe option now. Holy Smoke isn't. It's not easy to watch. Somepeople will love it and others will go, "What's this all about?"

In this bizarre and compelling film. Kate plays Ruth. a 20-year-old Australian who has joined a cult In India and is brought back home by her parents to be deprogrammed against her will. 'It was more exhausting than six days a week in the water for Titanic,' insists Kate of the emotionally-charged film-'But I loved it.'

Known for her roles in costume dramas like Sense and Sensibility, Jude, Hamlet and Titanic, It took some time to adjust to the costumes in the new film. 'Out went the corsets and big frocks,' Kate laughs. 'I wear a sarong, T-shirt and go barefoot. I felt naked the whole time.'

Although she has done full -frontal nudity before, the scene where she walks naked In Holy Smoke must have taken some guts. Kate nods but feels it's important. 'Both Jim and I were a bit shell-shocked,' she says of seeing it for the first time. 'But he understood. He knows I'd never do a nude scene if it wasn't for a good reason. I think that could be said of all nudity I have done.'

In fact, Kare found the harder scene was the sweet, youthful one where Ruth is visited by her scnool friends. 'It was difficult because I felt 30 compared to the girls who were 21 and 19' explains the actress, who was only 22 at the time of filming, 'I think it's because of what I've experienced in my life. I started working young and was about to get married I was never fond of being girly anyway. I was always much happier climbing trees.'

Not that her life has changed that much since Titanic's enormous success. 'I still go to my local swimming pool, stand In the queue, and pay like everyone else,' smiles Kate. 'I do get offered better roles now and there's an occasional invasion of privacy, of course, but no-one becomes public property without their consent. If you play at the film star thing - trying to evade paparazzi - that just leads to unhappiness.' She adds, apologetically, 'People don't even recognize me - they're always expecting to see this large person, and I'm not. I'm completely normal.'

So normal that her fluctuating weight has become tabloid fodder, a subject she is tired of. "I'm not fat I'm fit, healthy, womanly and slim. I have a normal body, a good pair of tits on me and a good ass. In a corset, I look thinner, out of the corset, people think I've put on weight. It's untrue. I'm not a skinny model and I'm not a stick. I've been nominated for two Oscars and played lead in the highest-grossing film in the world. So therel'

In fact, in her next projects, Philip Kaufman's Quills, opposite Michael Caine and Joaquin Phoenix, and as Emile Zola's heroine, Therese Raquin, Kate is back in period costumes. On Therese Raquin, she is also the film's executive producer. 'I will have some hands-on power, though nothing concerning my performance or anything that would override the director's choices,'promises Kate. 'No actor can be objective about themselves. You must give yourself over to the director.'

Other plans include wanting children while she is young: 'That way, my own experiences of being young will be fresh,'she explains. 'I'll be able to share them. You then have more of a friendship as against a strict parent-child relationship.

As for her working with Leo again, she concludes with a laugh, 'We're great friends and talk on the phone a lot, but after having made Titanic, anything else we'd do together would be a pale imitation. We were lucky to be part of a unique film, and we should enjoy and leave it at that.'

Holy Smoke is out March 31st.

Feature by Oliver O'Neal and photography by Stefano C. Montesi