Charlie Rose talks in depth with Kate Winslet on becoming Iris Murdoch and living life as an actress.

Charlie Rose: We'll be right back. Kate Winslet is here. Stay with us.

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Charlie: Kate Winslet is here. She has become known as an actress who plays by her rules after starring in Titanic, the most successful movie of all time, she defied all of Hollywood's expectations by focusing on smaller films such as Hideous Kinky. Her latest is Iris about Iris Murdoch who died from Alzheimer's. Kate Winslet plays the younger Murdoch. Judi Dench plays the later years.

[ Iris Trailer ]

Charlie: Academy Award nominee, Kate Winslet.

Charlie: The performance has already earned her a Golden Globe nomination and the L.A. Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress. I'm pleased to have her here at this table for the first time. Welcome.

Kate: Thank you.

Charlie: Great to have you.

Kate: It's good to be here.

Charlie: She's an interesting woman, and what's interesting, Iris Murdoch. What's interesting is to watch that trailer because you can see you as the younger Iris and then Judi Dench. And people can imagine and, that's written about this, that that visually it's almost like you're seeing the same personality at a mature age, the facial resemblance.

Kate: It is and I can't tell you what a relief it was when I first saw the film, to see this resemblance, to see the similarity and I sort of went oh, thank god, we feel like the same woman. Because Judi and I and Jim and Hugh never actually, we never sat down and said okay, so how are we going to play these parts and is there any funny little similar things that we're going to do. Those conversations just sort of didn't happen. I think it was the way the rehearsals were constructed and so on. I think we all must have pulled a lot of the similar stuff from the research we had done into who Iris Murdoch and John Bayley were as people. But Jim and Hugh, they had the advantage of basically looking exactly the same, they're incredibly similar, the same height, same mannerisms, but Judi and I almost look absolutely nothing alike.

Charlie: But the hair helps it.

Kate: I do have to give a lot of credit to the hair and makeup team and the costume designers on this film who had researched this to within an inch of its life. And we had extensive traffic material of Iris and John pasted up on the makeup walls everwhere, so we really wanted to get it right. There's a lot of pressure on an actor when you're playing someone who really existed, because this is a true story, a true love story. And I just can't stand the thought that someone who knew Iris would go and see this film and go, she was nothing like that. And one of the best things for me was I read an article that John Bayley had written about his experience of seeing the film. And although he said that it wasn't him and it wasn't Iris and although he felt that this was very much what their relationship had been about, that what he did feel was that I was very much, I was very much like what Iris was like when she was a young woman, as was Judi when she was older, and that to me is better than any nomination, any criticism constructive or otherwise, any praise from anyone that you could ever get that John Bayley actually said yes, I appeared to be like Iris. I just thought oh, thank god.

Charlie: It as an authenticity for him.

Kate: Yes, and what a relief.

Charlie: Did you watch anything of Judi? Who shot first?

Kate: Yes, the older section of the story was pretty much done first, and that was almost accidental and basically because of works commitments that Judi and Jim had to go onto. So they got that out of the way, and then we did the younger part of the story which was another four or five weeks. I did watch one scene that Judi had done, I said to her I would be interested to get a sense of the body language, so there was one scene that I did watch, they gave me a cassette of it and I watched it over and over again. But mostly my research was based on reading the two novels that John Bayley had written about his life with Iris, which is so wonderful and so funny. So I read them extensively. And I dipped into her novels. But the age at which I was playing her was as she was just starting to write and none of those had been published. So to me it was very important to create almost a web, a safety net and the foundation for the older part of the story. I had to create this rock of a woman who was absolute dynamite, incredibly feisty and so on, and obviously the decline later in her years, had to have a greater impact in a way. So I had to give that sort of starting point and that was very very hard to do. But a lot of fun.

Charlie: What did you like about her, when you read about her?

Kate: I liked the fact that she was strong. And I just love the fact that she loved life. She celebrated life. And being and people and loving and things. She talks about objects being precious, even things like stones and the end of her life she starts to collect bizarre objects things like old coca-cola tins and describes these things as being beautiful objects. She had this incredible ability to look at something and love it for what it was and not try to change things. She was inspired by words and talking and I just think, I just think she had an incredible --.

Charlie: It was a life force that and a passion for everything.

Kate: She was a force of nature. And I think it's very symbolic that one of the things that she and John Bayley loved to do was to be in water. She didn't necessarily enjoy swimming but she loved being in water, and he talks about this a lot in his novels, and I have had conversations with John Bayley about this passion for water that they had. Which is why some of those scenes when they're swimming and when Hugh and I as the younger John and Iris are skinny dipping, I think it's why they're so much fun and so poignant is that you know these things really happened. They were important to us.

Charlie: You have a reputation at least in terms of what I read, and I say that because I don't know whether it's true or not, if you see something that you would like to do, a script that suggests a character, you're prepared to go to the director and make the case, for you.

Kate: [grinning and blushing] That's right.

Charlie: You've done that?

Kate: Well, I have to say this is one similarity that Iris Murdoch and I share, that life is short, life is preference and is here for living and only get once chance. So without being pushy or forceful, I always try and communicate my passion for that particular project to a director, because apart from anything else I'm sure that directors often quite like to hear how much that actor would either like to work for them or be involved in this particular script because they think it's fabulous or whatever and think they can bring a certain thing to it. So I have been known to make the telephone call.

Charlie: Richard Eyre was the director of Iris. Did he come after you, or was, every director that's been at this table tells me that casting is crucial, is more than 50% of a film.

Kate: Oh, absolutely. It is. Casting is absolutely crucial. And for me, if I become involved in a movie and some of the other roles have been cast, it's alwayss really useful to know who those actors are going to be and often that can dictate will you're going to do it or not do it or whatever, it just very much depends on the situation. And so when I was sent the script of Iris Richard and Judi had been attached, and Jim Broadbent, so I was wasn't going to say no. Was I going to say no? I was like I can't be that be asked to play the young judi dench.

Charlie: In Titanic the story isis tha you helped persuade leonardo to do it?

Kate: I guess I kind of did. I was, I think about this now, and Jim Cameron took an enormous risk really in casting me in this role, I'm english, I'm not an American, not necessarily huge box office name, I had done Sense and Sensibility and received the nomination, but still I was known in the U. K. And not so much really here. I received a lot of fan mail after Titanic saying I think this is great, what a fantastic debut performance, not realizing I had done about five other movies at this. I was the first cast member to be on board. And Leo was thinking about it. I met him with him in Cannes and I remember tracking him down and, we'll have fun. And thankfully he said yes he'd do it.

Charlie: Roll tape, here's a scene from Titanic.

[ Titanic Clip "Why can't I be like you Jack? Just head out for the horizon... "]

Charlie: Back to Iris.

Kate: God, I haven't seen that for ages.

Charlie: How many times have you seen the movie?

Kate: I've seen it three times. I really haven't seen it for a very long time. It's interesting because I usually don't watch something that I've been in more than twice, maximum of three times. Iris I've seen four times and I still can't wait to see it again.

Charlie: Why is that?

Kate: I don't know, it's not that I love it more than the other things I've done, but it has a very special placece for me, this movie, I think it's probably because it's a true story, and it is such a wonderfully inspiring love story. And because it's real, there's nothing predictable or formulaic about it. So as an audience you watch it and it makes you laugh and cry in very different places, and it gives me something different every time. I love that.

Charlie: What role or what part did Richard Eyre play in shaping your own performance?

Kate: Well, a great deal. I remember saying to him at the beginning, before we started shooting I said 'I have one request, one request'. He said 'What's tha?'. I said, 'Don't let me get away with anything'. I said, 'Just push me, make sure that you've really pushed me, let never move on from a particular scene until we're absotely sure that we've got it right or we have different options to play with, you know. And just never let me do too little or too much.'. I just wanted him to make sure that he was.

Charlie: To make sure you found the perfect pitch?

Kate: Yeah, because when you're playing someone who really existed, you desperately want to getet it right, in order to do them justice really. And to honor their memory. And so I was just very determined that he would do he did.

Charlie: Iris Murdoch was known as the smartest woman in Britain was that daunting?

Charlie: How do you convey, you can convey intelligence.

Kate: Well, yes and no.

Charlie: Does the script help do you that?

Kate: I think you have to just keep an open mind, you have to keep a very very open mind when you're walking into playing a person who was as intellectual as she was. And try not to be afraid basically, because if you're frightened you just step backwards, and Iris was so open and yet private at the same time. As a human being she was very open with her emotions, emotions of the heart certainly. But very to be honest and say that so much was taken care of for us in terms of the levels of intellect, in the writing, because the script is so brilliant. I loved the script. And it's incredibly precise, and has a lot of that intellectual type log very much built into it. So in a way it was a case of taking that and then layering as much intelligence as possible.

Charlie: Roll tape, this is where John meets Iris.

[ Iris Clip - the dance seen and falling down the stairs. ]

Charlie: What I find remarkable and I know people like this, it is the complete honesty with that if they're unhappy, they can't live a lie.

Kate: That's right.

Charlie: They cannot not express who they are, what they feel and what their life is about.

Kate: That's very true, and I think that again was a similarity, but perhaps I only recognized once I shot the movie, because I'm a little like that, just in the sense that this is me, this is who I am, and I'll never change kind of thing. And I don't demand that people accept me as I am or anything like that, but Iris absolutely just, she was the same, she was just this is me, you must accept me as I am.

Charlie: So you don't demand that people accept you that way meaning you basically say this is who I am.

Kate: Yes, this is who I am and I kind of take me or you leave me. Iris, as long as she had the ability to be herself and to be free thinking and to say what she believed in, she basically didn't care, but she did have an extraordinary array of friends from all walks of life.

Charlie: How much do you care because of your profession about what people think of you?

Kate: That's a difficult one. I always have to whittle this down to really only caring what my friends and family, not so much think about me, but how they feel, and their support. And that is more important to me than anything else. Obviously as an actor you're in a movie and you can only hope that they will go and like your performance and like the movie. You can only hope that that happens. That's the risk as actors that we take, because sometimes people, some people didn't like Titanic, I'm sure some people may not like Iris, you can't expect everything to be a success. But you can only hope that what you're giving to a movie is as honest and as whole as possible. And that is, that's not easy to do. There are some actors, I said about Leonardo, there are some actors who are literally gifted from God and can just walk in and do it, and that is what leo was like. I used to sweat and panic and worry over everything, and really have to try and get it out and work at it, kind of ripping your stomach open. But Leo would just, you know, be very very relaxed and just walk in and just do it.

Charlie: You couldn't do that?

Kate: No, I don't think I can. And I like to be personal, I like to be directed, I think I need to be directed as well, as an actor you can never quite, I can never quite know if I'm getting it right or not, and I always want to make sure the director has lots of different options so wh they get into the editing room they can put it together and use different segments and things.

Charlie: I opened the introduction of you by saying that you were known as someone who plays by your own rules, who makes your own choices. Is that an act of portrayal or does it simply happen that way, if people like Titanic and said clearly this establishes her with a huge visibility, and therefore you might have said I'm going to choose carefully, high visibility films to more firmly establish myself as some kind of performer.

Kate: It's not really, it's not really about fame for me, and people always say she's a huge movie star, I sort of want to hide under the table. Because I always feel rather embarrassed at being described in such a way, I don't know why, I have no idea. But I love acting, I really do love it. And I'm from an acting family. So I've always grown up with it. And to me it has always been about the script and the role. Not the size of the role, but how strong the role is and how much of a challenge I think that role might be to me and whether or not it's going to have an impact on my own life.

Charlie: In those films you have gone after, it is simply because?

Kate: I love the script. It's simply because I love the script. After Titanic, you know, people often say this thing oh you could have gone and done other big things.

Charlie: You probably turned big things down.

Kate: Yes, that did happen. But I did absolutely want to do a little film after Titanic. I did have this feeling of I just wanted everything to just calm down for a while.

Charlie: Because?

Kate: Because everything went crazy, people said your life is going to turn up side down it's going to completely change, and I'm going no it's no I'm going to be the same person. Of course my life did change, it did turn up side down for a while, then it comes down and goes back to normal. I didn't want to feel the fire in a way because I just wanted to remind myself that what is it that I do for a living, it's acting, and why do I do that, oh, yes, because I love it. And I didn't want to find myself getting cynical about this new position that I was in. I didn't want to at any point do that. For me doing Hideous Kinky kept me grounded and kept me real plus I just loved the script. I had read the novel when I was younger, and I remember saying one day, it's that book that I loved. It was a free spirited film, having fun and traveling in Morocco, getting a sun tan, not wearing a course set, playing a mother, which was fun. So.

Charlie: How do you find all the attendant publicity becomes to your personal life, whether marriage, parenthood, divorce, relationships?

Kate: It's hard, yeah, it's hard. It's frustrating, but really. And also not to let yourself be dictated by whateople say or what people are writing.

Charlie: But is there any -- you have, for example, if your marriage is breaking up, to make sure that people understand that the truth of it, the truth of it in terms of look don't believe that this was a breakup because of this reason, but simply was something between the two of us and we both realize it and we had a conversation and we did --

Kate: I think the thing that was a shock to people was that my ex-husband and I appeared to be very happy and grounded and all that. Behind closed doors that people don't know about. But it hadn't been working for a while and these were conversations that we were both having constantly. And we tried to make everything okay, you know, you don't just say 'Oh okay, let's call it a day and walk out the door.', we tried to make everything okay. But I think when we realized that we were no longer making each other happy and we didn't want the happiness of our child to be affected, that's when we acted in the way that we did. In terms of the way people speculated about it, I had to shrug it off, because I knew the situation, Jim knew the situation, it was amicable and remains to be so. He's a great guy and a great father, and all those things are really true, and people just don't like to believe that a breakup can be applicable. But in all reality it is. And everything that people write, I just have to ignore. As long as my child is happy, that's all I care about. Mia.

Charlie: Your dad was an actor. Was frequently out of work, as actors are.

Kate: Yeah. When I thought about being an actor I rememberI didn't even think about making movies, didn't even occur to me, because I had never grown up with that happening to any member of my family. They were always waiting for the call and waiting for the job. So I just anticipated that that's what that was what I would do as well.

Charlie: You did. You assumed that you would be an actor?

Kate: I knew that I was going to be an actor. I just sort of didn't think I would have any option in a way, I thought there's no way out, that's probably what I'll end up doing, and that's just simply sort of what happened. I wanted to be an actress, I remember feeling that from a very young age, but it was kind of dictated for me because of the fact that all my family had done it, my father and grandparents and everything else. But I was used to just seeing a bunch of jolly actors in my family, who are all fantastic. But that's why I thaw that would be the case for me. So when I was 17 and filming Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson's movie, I just couldn't believe it. And when I was making the film, I don't think I ever thought that people were going to see it. I don't think I ever thought about the fact that that film would at some point be released. It was so weird, I was just there and doing it and trying to be as present as I could, and trying to enjoy myself as much as I could. Just couldn't believe that I was in a film. And it did what it did and I'm incredibly grateful to this day for Peter Jackson and his co-writer, Fran Walsh, for casting me in that part.

Charlie: It's great to have you here.

Kate: It's great to be here.

Charlie: Iris is a fascinating film. Thank you fofor joining us. See you tomorrow night.

Source: Transcription by Discover Kate.