Good Morning Texas

January 18, 2000

Good Morning Texas: Actress Kate Winslet won our admiration as the head strong Rose in the movie Titanic. Her character defied her parents, defied her fiancée. Smart move there. And the mores of a Victorian age. In her latest film called Holy Smoke she again takes on the role of a powerful female character. This time she is a young Australian woman kidnapped by a cult deprogrammer.

Kate Winslet joins us live this morning via satellite from New York City. Nice to see you, Kate.

Kate: Hello, When did I defy my fiancée? I just heard you say that little bit.

GMT: You know. In Titanic you did.

Kate: Oh, in Titanic. I thought you were talking about Holy Smoke.

GMT: Oh, no. In Titanic.

Kate: Because I was engaged to be married in real life and, I'm thinking 'Did I defy my fiancee'?'

GMT: Oh, no. None of this is personal, Kate. It's all about movie characters.

Kate: Okay. You carry on.

GMT: Okay, let's talk about Holy Smoke. You play a woman who thinks she's spiritually enlightened. Might even feel she is spiritually enlightened. Yet her family does not. What is she searching for in this film?

Kate: I think, and this is one thing that I really related to, I think she was just crossing that bridge between being a young adult, sort of a teenager, to becoming a woman. She was sort of on that bridge not knowing where she was going.

And not knowing what was the answer to life and what she wanted from her life. I truly believe that it was that that she was looking for.

And, in India she stumbled across this guru Baba. And he just told her something new and she felt something new that she'd never felt before in her life. I mean this is a girl who comes from a small Sydney suburb with a very sort of mundane routine to things and was wanting something different and this is what she found in India.

GMT: Now what she finds in India is not what her family in Australia wants.

Kate: No. This is true.

GMT: So they hire Harvey Keitel who is a deprogrammer in a sense.

Kate: He is a deprogrammer. It's true.

GMT: When audiences pay money to see Holy Smoke, are we trying to say anything to them about this character that you play? What are we trying to say to them.

Kate: It's hard to know exactly what Holy Smoke is saying because it's saying so many different things. It raises a lot of questions about the battle of the sexes and spirituality, a lot of different things.

Specifically, I'd say what I think Ruth is trying to say to an audience is ' Do what you believe in and fight for whatever you need to fight for in order to get to the point where you understand who you are.'

And I think that's terribly important for young people, you know, having your own identity and not going being judged by people who have been there already and are older than you are. I think it's very hard to hold on to your beliefs when you're young.

I think that's what I love about this character so much because she just went out there and did what she wanted to do and said what she wanted to say. And, I just admired that about her.

GMT: You know what I admire about you? You've never run from the success of the Titanic. You've always embraced that because you seem grateful, to me, because that film did so well and you're very good in that film.

Kate: Well, you know, who wouldn't be grateful for the fact that something you worked on for seven months. So hard. Worked on it so hard. Gets seen by the entire world.

I mean its fantastic. It's nice to have something that you cared about so much received by the masses. You know?

So I'll always be very proud of it. As I am of all the things that I've done. I've been really grateful to have worked with some brilliant directors and brilliant actors. I've taken away lots of lessons from each film that I've worked on.

GMT: Well, and many more films to come. If I rent any video it's Sense and Sensibility and just watch it. It's so good. Thank you very much.

Kate: Good one! Thank you.

GMT: The name of the movie is called Holy Smoke starring Kate Winslet and the strange and wonderful Harvey Keitel.