• 4 months ago
Kate Winslet takes a walk down memory lane as she rewatches scenes from her classic works including 'Titanic,' 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' The Holiday,' 'Mare of Easttown,' 'Avatar II,' and 'The Regime.' Kate dishes on not being able to stop laughing wile filming the iconic "I'm Flying" scene alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Titanic,' the adaptability required while shooting 'Eternal Sunshine' to the and so much more.
Transcript
00:00Oh, come on, get on with it, get on with it, do the kissing part.
00:07Yep, see, can't breathe.
00:08My boob is practically up to my chin.
00:12My God.
00:13Hi, I'm Kate Winslet, and I am going to watch some scenes from throughout my career.
00:19Right, here we go.
00:20Oh, my lordy.
00:45This might be really cringe.
00:46See, I look at that, and I just see how much I couldn't breathe in that bloody corset.
00:55Well, this was a nightmare, shooting this, because Leo couldn't stop laughing, and we
01:01had to reshoot this about four times because the light, the light was, Jim wanted a very
01:06specific light for this, obviously, and the sunsets kept changing where we were.
01:14This was a section of the ship.
01:15It wasn't part of the actual whole ship set that we had.
01:19It was a little sort of sawn-off bit.
01:22We had to climb up a ladder to get to it.
01:24I remember it was sort of hair and makeup couldn't reach us.
01:27Now, what you wouldn't know, because Leo looks completely natural, but he had to lie on sunbeds.
01:34There's a lot of fake tan makeup going on.
01:37So I have got hidden in here and here.
01:41I've got his makeup and brushes and sponge and my makeup and brushes and sponge in the
01:46other side, and between takes, I was basically redoing our makeup.
01:58Kept bumping my knees on that third railing.
02:00Oh, come on, get on with it.
02:03Get on with it.
02:04Do the kissing part.
02:05It's quite funny.
02:06Giggling, covered in each other's makeup.
02:08Oh, my God, it goes on and on and on.
02:10Yep, see, can't breathe.
02:12My boob's practically up to my chin.
02:16My God.
02:17It's quite the romancer, isn't he?
02:18No wonder every young girl in the world wanted to be kissed by Leonardo DiCaprio.
02:22It was not all it's cracked up to be.
02:24So we kept doing this kiss, and I have a lot of pale makeup on, and I would have to, like,
02:30do our makeup checks, me on both of us between takes, and I would end up looking as though
02:36I had been, like, sucking a caramel chocolate bar after each take, because his makeup would
02:39come up on me, and he just looked like there was a bit missing from his face, because there
02:44was this big pale bit from all my makeup getting onto him.
02:46Oh, God, it was such a mess.
02:47I do feel very proud of it, because I feel that it is that film that just keeps giving.
02:53You know, whole other generations of people are discovering the film or seeing it for
02:57the first time, and there's something extraordinary about that.
03:02Doesn't mean that people don't get me to try and reenact this every time I want a flipping
03:05boat, which does my head in.
03:07Oh, really?
03:08Every time.
03:09Without fail.
03:10And you do it?
03:12Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
03:21Really solid this time of year.
03:23Whoa!
03:24I don't know.
03:25Come on.
03:26Come on.
03:27Come on.
03:28Come on.
03:29Come on.
03:30I'd forgotten how good I look with the blue hair.
03:34I look good with blue hair.
03:36They were all wigs, because we had to change them.
03:38You know, sometimes I'd start the day
03:39and we'd have a scene where I had orange hair
03:42and then in the afternoon, it would be green.
03:45And then maybe back to orange before the end of the day.
03:47Like it just, the way that it was scheduled,
03:50they had to be wigs.
03:51Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do it.
03:53It would have been impossible.
03:57Quite a lot of this was improvised.
03:58I remember that there just wasn't much dialogue
04:00written on the page.
04:02So we just added stuff.
04:03It was extremely cold.
04:05Just all of the stuff about the eyes, you know,
04:07slidy, slidy, it's not going to break.
04:08It's so thick this time of year.
04:09All of that, that was, that's all improvised and added.
04:12And him saying, oh no, I think I should go back.
04:15It was mostly improvised, actually.
04:20I think I should go back, huh?
04:22Come on.
04:23What if it breaks?
04:24With Eternal Sunshine, everything about it
04:26was not what I expected it to look like
04:27because Michel Gondry is such an avant-garde director
04:30and he's very experimental.
04:32And none of us could have ever known
04:34how the film was going to look,
04:36what it was going to feel like,
04:37how it was all going to come together.
04:38The shoot was quite bonkers in how experimental it was
04:43and fast-paced it was.
04:44And things would often happen that weren't part of the plan
04:49or we'd end up shooting in the snow
04:51when it wasn't meant to be snowing.
04:53I mean, we would just adapt the scene
04:55to whatever was going on that day.
04:57Oh, there wasn't any prep for this scene
04:59because we didn't know what to expect.
05:00We got there and it really was a very thick frozen river.
05:03Most of the prep was in just hiding sort of hot packs
05:06and layers of thermal clothing underneath our costumes
05:09because it was absolutely freezing
05:11and trying not to shiver while saying dialogue,
05:14trying to relax yourself as much as possible.
05:18Show me which constellations you're in.
05:21This is a scene that does stick out in my mind
05:23as being a lot of fun.
05:25That particular night shoot was fun.
05:27I love doing night shoots, actually.
05:29I always sort of feel like I'm going to work
05:31and I've got a secret or something.
05:33It's a great feeling.
05:34I remember thinking, oh God,
05:36we're going to be putting a whole film crew on this ice.
05:38And no, they'd been monitoring the ice
05:41and experts had told us it was safe.
05:43But you do hear like a,
05:45whoosh,
05:47like a sort of a cracking noise
05:50when it's sort of cracking at the very deeper parts.
05:54But this was about 14 inches thick.
05:58So there was, there was no way it was going to crack.
06:06Come and tell me a little about your Christmas presents.
06:09Cos it must be lovely you.
06:14One of our only days where we were all together,
06:16of course, on this shoot,
06:17because my part of the story takes place in England
06:23and separately to the Cameron character's story.
06:27Oh, we all just had such a giggle.
06:29It was all just great fun.
06:30They're all lovely people.
06:31And Cameron's whole thing ever in life
06:33is how can I have the most fun possible?
06:36So she's constantly laughing.
06:37She's constantly joking.
06:39And Jack, of course,
06:40he just does something different every take,
06:42which is eternally refreshing.
06:45And for something like this was very, very good
06:47because with romantic comedy,
06:48things do have to remain fairly scripted
06:51because so much of it is about the comedic timing
06:53and how it's shot.
06:54And yeah, the rhythm is,
06:57and the cadence to everything is quite important.
07:00And so there wasn't much room
07:02to sort of add things spontaneously,
07:04but Jack would always find a way to slip something in.
07:07And I was always really grateful for that,
07:09especially with something like this
07:10where everyone's having to pretend it's Christmas.
07:13So actually Jack was brilliant at kind of adding things
07:15and he was brilliant with those little girls.
07:18So that was fun.
07:18It kept it fun, which is what it was meant to be.
07:21I would love to work with Jack again and again and again.
07:23So my on-set nickname to this day is K-Dub.
07:26People just call me K-Dub and he started it.
07:29Jack started it.
07:30And I am, that is my name.
07:32Everyone just calls me, at work,
07:34everyone calls me K-Dub.
07:35♪ There's a picture to remember you and me ♪
07:38Although I will tell you that all of the interiors
07:42of that beautiful English country cottage
07:45were studio builds in Los Angeles,
07:48which is devastating to everyone who hears that.
07:51And the cottage itself,
07:52that picture, postcard, perfect, chocolate box,
07:55jigsaw puzzle cottage, it was just a shell.
07:58It was just a facade.
08:00It was just the sides, the front, and a roof.
08:04And every time I'd go through that door into the cottage,
08:07I'd be standing in a bunch of like rubble
08:08surrounded by scaffolding,
08:09old Coke cans thrown on the ground,
08:12bits of old chewing gum wrapper.
08:14Yep.
08:14♪ There's a picture to remember you and me ♪
08:23Oh, God, I can't afford you.
08:28Oh, fuck.
08:32Oh, God, I can't afford you.
08:34I was dreading shooting this scene
08:36because the triggers that I created for myself
08:40in playing this character
08:42and in concealing all of that grief was,
08:44they were just so real for me.
08:47And I was like, oh, God, I can't afford you.
08:50They were just so real for me.
08:52And I was absolutely dreading shooting this.
08:57Hang in from one of the beams.
09:02He'd gotten a tow rope from the garage.
09:05Oh, fuck.
09:10I cut him down.
09:14That particular sequence of running into the house
09:17because I hurt my toe and I was limping.
09:20So we got that twice, thank God.
09:22And then the little piece when we are inside the house,
09:25that was a separate time.
09:27That was interior studio, actually.
09:30The dummy that had been made
09:32that was exactly the physicality of the actor
09:35who was actually playing Kevin in the flashback sequences.
09:38So that, it was just awful.
09:40And we had a camera up there,
09:41obviously looking down at me
09:42because we have that angle, that down angle where I fall.
09:46Well, where I sort of collapse.
09:48They were just brilliant.
09:48They just kept as much to one side as they could.
09:52So that I didn't see them at all.
09:55I just saw the dummy hanging and the camera itself.
10:00I didn't see the operator or the focus puller,
10:03which was enormously helpful.
10:04And that was filmed about a month
10:06after the exterior part of the scene.
10:09And then a couple of months later, we shot this part.
10:12I'm so sorry.
10:16Do you still live in the same house?
10:19I was almost trying to charge myself up
10:21with as many distractions as possible.
10:23So that when I had to sit and say these words,
10:26that I would feel shocked by saying them.
10:30And that they would feel fresh in my head.
10:34And that it would be something
10:37that was springing into my body, I suppose,
10:41in the moment that I had to play it out.
10:43And it was just awful.
10:46It was awful.
10:47The emotion of this whole sequence,
10:52it was so embedded in me, actually,
10:54that I had to just sustain it
10:57across the entire time of playing the character.
11:00Because what had happened to her with her son
11:03defines who she is and how she is with people
11:06every single day of her life.
11:08And so it was the main thrust of the character, really.
11:12As you can see, hard to shake.
11:15So what they did so that they could get the physicality
11:27of me climbing up onto her fin and sitting there
11:31and putting my hands on something.
11:33Someone had taken a foam noodle
11:35and just bent it in the shape of an eye
11:38and zip tied it onto the metal grill.
11:42So that was what I was acting to to create that sequence.
11:48And I do remember thinking, this is never gonna work.
11:51I'm sure this is dreadful.
11:53And of course it works because Jim Cameron is a genius.
12:01There are moments where I can't see myself at all
12:03and then others when I really can.
12:05And I think my mouth looks very much like my own mouth.
12:07So it's certain expressions Sam makes
12:10where I can really see Sam.
12:13And Zoe, again, it's her mouth.
12:16There's something about her mouth
12:18and how she hangs her head is very like Zoe.
12:21It was absolutely amazing working with Jim Cameron again.
12:26I think we're both such different people, really,
12:28since Titanic.
12:29It's such a long time ago.
12:30He just covers everything from a million angles.
12:34There are actual cameras there,
12:35probably about 22 actual cameras in the room.
12:38Then there are rigged cameras in the roof,
12:43capturing everything.
12:44And so you can be extremely free.
12:48♪♪
12:50♪♪
12:53-♪♪
12:54God.
12:55♪♪
12:59What is it?
13:00♪♪
13:03The Vernon regime has been defeated.
13:05The country is yours.
13:07Disregard any news of the country.
13:09All services will soon be restored.
13:11Totally improvising like a mad person there.
13:13Yeah, I liked the scene a lot.
13:15This was great fun.
13:16This is at the beginning of episode six in the regime.
13:18And it's actually my favourite episode of the regime.
13:25It's very funny.
13:26Sometimes I actually still will fall asleep at night
13:29thinking about moments from episode six of the regime.
13:31And it makes me laugh as I'm falling asleep.
13:33The country is yours.
13:35Disregard any news of the country.
13:37All services will soon be restored
13:39by the Westgate Resistance Army.
13:43So the voice that we ended up settling on
13:46for the character of Elena
13:48was something that I came up with during the prep period
13:53because I knew that it just didn't make any sense to me
13:56to speak in my own voice as I'm speaking now
13:59because it is a satire.
14:02It is set in an imagined universe.
14:04And there are things about the whole show
14:06that are meant to be completely absurd.
14:09And so I needed to find a way of creating something
14:14for the character that immediately let the audience know
14:18that they weren't necessarily supposed
14:21to take this seriously.
14:26Fuck them all.
14:27Yeah, there's a moment when I go, come on.
14:28I think that was improvised.
14:30Sarah!
14:31Sarah!
14:34Nicky!
14:35Nicky, Nicky!
14:36Oh my God, we improvised so much throughout this.
14:39We would just often add things
14:41because sometimes when it's fast-paced dialogue,
14:43adding little bits here and there
14:44to the beginning or the end of a line,
14:46or even in the middle,
14:48just does help to keep everything feeling
14:50very alive and real.
14:51It was a huge amount of fun to play around with comedy,
14:54to be with so many actors on set every day.
14:56I loved that, being part of a big ensemble.
15:00And working with Matthias again,
15:02I'd worked with him 11 years ago
15:03and we'd had an amazing experience working together,
15:06got on extremely well.
15:08He's very playful, really collaborative.
15:15So that's it for me, we're done.
15:16This torture has finally come to an end.
15:19And if I wasn't afraid of breaking something,
15:22I would probably throw this remote at that television
15:24and smash it, but I won't, I'll just turn it off.
15:30Thank you.

Recommended