She's a Hollywood star -- making films with Jim Carrey and Kevin Spacey -- but she's got a new dream. How would you like to see Kate Winslet on stage, and even in a musical? By SARAH BAXTER.

Thanks to Allan for the article!

Her father calls her Katie, and this is the story of what Katie does next. It all began when a young English rose bloomed in a Jane Austen classic. Then there was Titanic and our heroine was swept into the Hollywood A list and drenched with offers. After that, perhaps surprisingly, came some low-budget films, such as Hideous Kinky and Quills. which did not involve getting wet and left audiences cold. Along the way there was marriage, motherhood, divorce and a new romance with Sam Mendes, the British theatre and Hollywood hotshot. She received her third Oscar nomination for playing the young, pudding-faced Iris Murdoch last year. There have been even more column inches devoted to her yo-yo weight than to her roles. And Kate Winslet is still only 27. Her career could yet take some unexpected turns.

When we meet in New York, where Winslet is filming and Mendes is directing two award-winning plays, I cannot resist inspecting her closely. It is always a pleasure to see actors in the flesh. Are they too small? Too bony? Do they have spots or detectable plastic surgery? The worst that can be said of Winslet is that she is amazingly normal for a screen beauty. She's lounging in baggy trousers, hand-rolling tobacco, and is like a miles-better-looking you or me. She scoffs at headlines like "the sexiest girl next door", but that's what she is. She's a laugh, too. unashamed of lining up with Gary Lineker et al and apparently breaking wind in a Walkers crisps advert for Comic Relief. She is admittedly rounder than your average film star, but slimmer than most of us. In the opening scene of The Life of David Gale. Alan Parker's new thriller (opening on March 14). Winslet is shown pounding the highway in jeans, looking fit but with sizeable thighs. So it's true, the camera really does pile on the weight, unless she has been on a crash diet without the aid of GQ magazine's digital fakery.

Just as surprising as those computer-trimmed legs was the sight of Winslet as a cover girl in naughty black corset. She's never gone in for raunchy roles and, post-Titanic, has shied away from playing obvious lovelies. "I don't like being on show. I find it makes me uncomfortable," she says. "I have more fun when there is no glamour involved. It probably comes from being at theatre school. When you are 13 stone at 15 and you have to put on an all-in-one leotard and tap dance around the room with 20 girls who are much, much smaller than you, that leaves its mark."

After a near-bout of anorexia in her late teens, she threw away her bathroom scales. "It got to the point where I fainted. I was with my mum and she said, 'What have you eaten today?' and 1 couldn't think of anything. After that, I sorted myself out and I don't know what I weigh any more,The only time I have had to lose weight was after I gave birth, because I'd put on 50 or 60 pounds." Bitsey Bloom, the gutsy reporter in Parker's film. is meant to be attractive. Her looks, as Gale, a campaigner against the death penalty, played by Kevin Spacey, chooses her to investigate his case three days before he is due to be and rape. But there is no love interest. She and Spacey are separated by prison glass even time they meet. It's an intellectual relationship.

"It was a real test doing intense scenes with an actor you cannot touch at all. It was surreal because I'm a physical, tactile person. I loved acting with Kevin, but we didn't have much time together. We only had 10 days to shoot our scenes and he was gone." Despite these repressed encounters, the film is an action thriller with several twisting narratives and a frantic, surprising conclusion. Parker seems to think he has made an anti-death-penalty movie, although the message is pretty muddled. Winslet. the mother of two-year-old Mia, will only say: "It's such a dodgy subject. If someone killed my child, of course I'd want them dead. It's a parental instinct."

She badgered Parker into casting her by ringing him regularly. "The script really got my juices going. I kept picking it up and reading it again. I didn't know Alan Parker at the time, but I thought: 'I might as well go for this, what have I got to lose? I'm a big girl. He can always say no." What she particularly liked was her character's tough exterior and emotional vulnerability. Bitsey even has a male cub reporter traipsing around Texas with her. in a traditionally female sidekick role. It was not the first time Winslet has pestered directors. "I've always been such a go-getter that way. I sent James Cameron flowers after my screen test for Titanic."

She doesn't really need to send out hire-me beacons. She is living with one of the world's most in-demand, Oscar-winning directors, making them a much sought-after couple in film and theatre circles. When Mendes. 37. received three Olivier awards the other week, including ones for Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night, he thanked "my partner, Kate, because these are two plays about love, and it helps when you direct them to have some personal experience". Winslet was shown dabbing away the tears. They fell in love after Mendes asked her to star in both those plays. She declined out of nerves and childcare commitments, but his presence in her life is rekindling her love of greasepaint. "I hadn't spent time backstage in theatres for years, and there is a smell in the air. It's so exciting, it just reminds me of being a kid again." she enthuses.

Winslet's father, two grandparents and an uncle were actors, as are her sisters. "There's something wonderful for me about it. because so many generations of my family, going back and back, have been on stage and waiting in the wings to go on. I've been saying a lot recently that I really. really would like to do theatre."

Old habits die hard and. even now. she likes to go after what she wants. So. Sir Richard Eyre, are you listening out there? "God. I would just love to work with Richard." she says about her friend, the director of Iris. "I would love to. I just love him and find him a really inspiring director." Winslet got her hopes up when Eyre told her he had a "long-term career plan" for her in the theatre. What's more. Eyre gushed recently that in addition to her many talents. Winslet could sing. As the director of Guys and Dolls, Carousel and other National Theatre hits, he could tempt her to try a musical.

"I saw Chicago a week ago and thought I would definitely love to do one." she says, rattling off her credentials. "I was in Bugsy Malone twice when I was a kid. My sister was in Annie and I was even in a production of Fame. It was so much fun. I really got the taste for it."

She has performed in She has performed in only one professional play, at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. "I was 19 and absolutely terrified." she recalls. "I thought, I can't do that for a while, it was so frightening. But the bug is still there. If I do theatre, it's got to be with a director I really trust like Richard. I would want to feel looked after." It could include Spacey, who has just been appointed director of the Old Vic. "I can't wait to sit down and ask him what ideas he's got." Winslet says. As for Mendes. there is a touch of caution there, perhaps out of fear of public expoｭsure. "We probably will do something together, simply because we'd really enjoy it, but there's no plan. We haven't had that conversation yet, honestly."

Eyre played Cupid last year after they both asked confidentially. "What do you think of your friend Sam/Kate?" But her short-lived marriage to Jim Threapleton in the wake of Titanic and Mendes's series of passing romances has made them wary of blabbing on about their good fortune. They recently bought a ｣2m house together in north London and it seems like the real thing. Then again. Winslet appeared happily married to Threapleton until last year. "I really didn't want to get divorced. I didn't want my marriage to be in the condition it was and we really tried to save it. but it got to the point where we knew we were making each other unhappy and sooner or later it would affect Mia," she says. "It's important to us that she's a happy kid. and I can honestly say she is happier and more secure than she was before we broke up."

Winslet was stung by criticism at the time. "It was hard to deal with the press saying that Mia lived with her dad because I was too busy to deal with her. Of course I'm not too effing busy. I'm her mother, I'm not legally allowed to say what the situation is, but it's not half and half. Jim sees Mia a lot and they have a brilliant relationship, but she lives with me."

If anyone is holding up her stage career, it is Mia. Winslet will not consider an extended run. "It's got to be the right thing with the right person and probably not too long," she says. She would miss her bedtime routine with her daughter. She would also like more children, though she laughs: "My stomach is like shrunken crepe from the belly button down. Everyone's is, unless you want to do 200 sit-ups a day, which I don't." Promisingly, Sam is good with children. "He's great, really, really great. Nobody could be more thrilled than me that that's the case." They are all together in New York, where Winslet (hair: orange, red and blue) has been filming with Jim Carrey and Mendes has brought Uncle Vanya and Twelth Night, to brilliant reviews.

Oh, and Eyre is there too. As a matter of fact, he was just talking to Winslet on the phone when we met. I wonder what that was all about?

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Source: Our thanks to Alan for sending scans of the entire article.