Famous people also do normal

Famous people also do normal

It was uncharacteristically sunny that October day in London last year.

As English actress Kate Winslet walked into the interview room at Mayfair Hotel, she groaned: "It's so hot! How are you even breathing?"

Despite her complaint about the weather and her status as one of the greatest actresses of this generation, the 38-year-old has her feet firmly on the ground.

She said: "The reason that I'm not blasé is because I don't live a life where I train my children to bring me a cup of tea in bed. I don't have a life where I have a person who lives in and does things for me.

"Just this morning I said to the lovely girl who did my make-up: "Do you ever have days where you go, 'Oh my God, I don't know what to cook anymore?' And she goes, 'Oh my God, you cook?'

"It is funny this notion people have that when you become famous, you suddenly stop doing normal things.

"I'm sure that some people do, but I would be so unhappy if I didn't."

Winslet's latest movie Labor Day opens here next Thursday. Promotional works for the movie were pushed forward to as early as October to accommodate a labour day of a different kind.

Winslet was heavily pregnant then. She gave birth to her son, Bear, in December.

Bear is her first child with third husband Ned Rocknroll. She has two other children, 13-year-old Mia and eight-year-old Joe, from her previous marriages to directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes, respectively.

Labor Day revolves around depressed single mum Adele (Winslet) and her teenage son Henry (Gattlin Griffith), whose lives are forever changed after they offer an escaped convict (Josh Brolin) a ride.

It is adapted for the big screen by director-screenwriter Jason Reitman (Juno, Up In The Air, Thank You For Smoking), who confessed in a separate interview that he had written the role with Winslet in mind and waited more than a year for her to accept it.

She had been filming Roman Polanski's Carnage in March 2010 and needed a break before the next project.

Winslet admitted that her parenting experience with her daughter Mia helped her a lot for the role.

"The way of communicating is very familiar to me and I find my experience incredibly helpful," she said.

"When I was younger and was playing a parent before I became a parent myself, I would always find it quite frustrating. I would guess at things simply because I didn't know what it would feel like. I could imagine but didn't really know."

The six-time Oscar nominee grew up in a family of actors and began performing on British television when she was 13.

At the age of 22, she received her second Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in James Cameron's Titanic, two years after earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Sense And Sensibility.

She finally won an Oscar in 2009 - Best Leading Actress for The Reader.

Despite her successes at a young age, she remains humble, attributing it to her family and her upbringing.

She said: "I think it's the reason that I have been able to remain sane. It's really exciting every year, there's someone new whom we talk about, someone exciting coming through and doing well.

"But you also hear horror stories, where you just think, 'God, who is looking after these people? Why are they seeming to lose their way?'

"If you think about someone like Miley Cyrus, I remember I said to my daughter the other day, 'I am this close to really opening my mouth about what's going on with that girl.' And Mia went, 'Mum, don't. Don't go in. Just don't!'"

When asked if she is glad to have gained fame before social media took off, Winslet agreed.

"It's really rough now for young actors and actresses, pop stars in particular. It's a nightmare, I mean they can't do anything," she said.

"Someone had to explain to me what Instagram is because I'm just not going anywhere near it. I don't need it, I don't need to feed it, I don't need to be fed by it.

"I think what's happening now is that we do live in a world where we have to be aware of all of this stuff. Unfortunately, it's feeding this young generation in a way that is beyond terrifying.

"So yeah, I'm very, very, very grateful that when it was happening to Leo (DiCaprio) and me, we didn't have this sort of cyber-chaos."

 


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