Kate Winslet

A handful of actresses carry such a wellspring of inner grace and presence that they appear destined for celebrity from birth. Natalie_Wood had it, as didElizabeth_Taylor and Grace_Kelly; many would doubtless place Kate Winslet among their ranks. A tender 11 when she commenced her formal dramatic training, 19 when she debuted cinematically, and 20 when she received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, Winslet never "ascended" to stardom; she became a star overnight. The possessor of an hourglass-figured, full-lipped beauty that lends itself effortlessly to costume dramas, Winslet was roundly hailed by the press for standing in stark, proud contrast to her more conventional Hollywood peers. 

Born on October 5, 1975, and raised in Reading, England, as the daughter of stage actors and the granddaughter of a repertory theater manager, Winslet inherited the "drama bug" from her folks. After training exhaustively as a child and securing professional representation she went on the air as a spokesgirl for a popular British cereal, and later attended a performing-arts secondary school. Following an early graduation in 1991 (prior to the age of 16), Winslet launched her regional stage career, highlighted by roles in adaptations of +The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and +Peter Pan. It would be difficult to imagine a more auspicious film bow than the role of Juliet Hulme inPeter_Jackson's Heavenly_Creatures -- or a more difficult one. This characterization -- that of an extroverted adolescent who constructs an incestuously exclusive fantasy world with her best friend (Melanie_Lynskey) -- put Winslet on the map, and opened the door for follow-ups in international megahits such as Ang_Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), as the willfull, passionate Marianne; and James_Cameron's Titanic (1997), as the object ofLeonardo_Di_Caprio's affections, Rose DeWitt Bukater. She received dual Oscar nominations for those roles, but, surprisingly, failed to net either one.

Meanwhile, Winslet concurrently shied away from the high gloss of Cameronand unveiled her stage origins, traveling the arthouse circuit with such productions as Michael_Winterbottom's Jude (1996), as Sue Bridehead; and Kenneth Branagh's disappointing, overbaked, four-hour Hamlet (1996), as Ophelia. Hideous_Kinky embodied a turn on a much smaller scale. Directed by Scottish helmer Gillies MacKinnon (and scripted by his brother, Billy), the film casts Winslet as a freewheeling young hippie who takes her children to Morocco in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Beyond the positive reviews gleaned by the film and the praise that critics lavished onto Winslet's performance, one of the most alluring sidelights happened off camera, when Winslet dated and then married James Threapleton, the third assistant director on the MacKinnon film. The couple divorced in 2001.

During 1999 and 2000, Winslet dove into two roles that required her to cut loose and break free of all inhibitions. First, she played another young woman in search of spiritual enlightenment, this time in Jane_Campion's Holy_Smoke. Starring as an Australian girl who joins a cult on a visit to India, and is then "deprogrammed" by Harvey_Keitel, Winslet's role pushed her beyond the limits of propriety and embarrassment (one scene has her standing naked and urinating in front of Keitel). Unfortunately, one or two brave performances did not an unequivocal masterpiece make; the picture sharply divided critics, falling far short of the praise heaped onto Campion's The_Piano six years earlier. Even gutsier (though more successful on a dramatic level) was Winslet's turn as a laundress who delivers the Marquis de Sade's manuscripts to the outside world in Phil_Kaufman's Quills. Winslet reentered the Oscar limelight with yet another Academy-nommed performance as a youthful Iris_Murdoch in directorRichard_Eyre's Iris, but the gold statuette eluded her a third time whenJennifer_Connelly netted it for A_Beautiful_Mind. In early 2003, she hit a low point as Bitsey Bloom, opposite Kevin_Spacey in The Life of David Gale. Based on the experience of a University of Texas professor -- an avid anti-death-penalty activist faced with execution after a false conviction -- Winslet portrayed the reporter who broke the story in a desperate attempt to discover the truth behind the mysterious and brutal crime for which Gale was convicted. As scripted by Charles_Randolph and directed by Alan_Parker, the picture opened and closed almost simultaneously, to devastating, brutal reviews. 

Winslet fared better in 2004, as the love interest opposite Jim_Carrey inMichel_Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This humorous and poignant mindbender, with a tender romance at its core, scored on all fronts, as did Winslet's performance, earning her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. She followed it up with a return to period film inFinding_Neverland (2005), a movie about Victorian author J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny_Depp. Playing the inspiration for the character of Wendy in the beloved novel -Peter Pan seemed only natural for the charming actress, who had long since proven herself a similarly charismatic onscreen force. 

2006 found Winslet in a quintet of back-to-back projects. In the CG-animatedFlushed_Away -- from Aardman and Dreamworks -- she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Hugh_Jackman's Roddy escape from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. That year, she also headlined the political drama All the King's Men, opposite Sean_Penn. Written and directed by Schindler's_List's Steven_Zaillian, the picture cast Winslet as Jude_Law's childhood sweetheart; while overflowing with talent, the long-gestating remake was a major misfire with critics and audiences. Perhaps more fortuitously, Winslet joined the cast of Todd_Field'sLittle_Children, an ensemble comedy drama about fear and loathing in an upper-class suburb in New England. The film would net her her fifth Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. More financially successful was her involvment in Nancy_Meyers' romantic comedy Holiday, as Iris, a Britishwoman who temporarily "swaps homes," as part of a vacation ploy, withCameron_Diaz's Amanda, and has an affair with Jack_Black. Meanwhile, Winslet and Johnny_Depp reunited for the first occasion sinceFinding_Neverland as narrators of the IMAX documentary Deep Sea 3D (2006), filmmaker Howard_Hall's lavish exploration of the aquatic depths, designed for young viewers.

After taking some time off in 2007, Winslet returned in 2008 with a pair of award-winning performances. Playing opposite her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road earned her Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press, as well as a healthy number of year-end critics awards. But it was her work in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of The Reader that provided her with the sixth Academy nomination of her career, as well as Best Supporting Actress nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press made history that year selecting her the winner in both the Best Actress in a drama and the Best Supporting Actress categories at that year's Golden Globes. Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Kate Winslet says movie stars are lazy in comparison to TV actors.

The British actress is about to be seen in five-part HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, based on James M. Cain’s 1941 novel.

And despite the show lacking that blockbuster status, Kate says she had to work so much harder to play her divorcée character.

“We had more to shoot and we had to work a lot faster, but the determination and the level of focus that we all had to have, because we were limited, was so much more intense than certainly any film I’ve been a part of,” says Kate.

“Film, schmilm. I’m telling you, television is so much harder.”

Reports last month claimed Kate — who recently split from Burberry model Louis Dowler — is enjoying a new romance with a mystery man.....

The five-part HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, based on James M. Cain’s 1941 novel and premiering March 27th, tells the epic story of a proud single mother struggling to earn her daughter’s love during the Great Depression in middle-class Los Angeles. Mildred Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a uniquely independent woman and her story is an intimate portrait of a new divorcée, struggling to carve out a new life for herself and her daughter, Veda (Evan Rachel Wood), for whom she is unreasonably devoted.

During a recent interview to promote the intriguing new project, actress Kate Winslet and co-writer/director/executive producer Todd Haynes talked about their approach to this complex and nuanced work, the marathon experience of bringing this story to life, working in television for the first time, and steering clear of the original film, in developing the portrayal of this woman. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly have all assembled in Paris to shoot Roman Polanski’s big-screen adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning comedy The God of Carnage.

The story follows the aftermath of a showdown between two children aged around eleven in a local playground when the parents of the victim invite those of the bully to talk it out. Carnage ensues after an initially cordial meeting turns sour.

The movie, simply entitled Carnage, stars Winslet (The Reader) and Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) as husband and wife Nancy and Alan, opposite Foster and Reilly (We Need To Talk About Kevin) as Penelope and Michael, respectively.

Reza joined Polanski in adapting the play for the big screen which is set in Brooklyn. The play was originally set in Paris when it premiered back in 2006, but changed to Brooklyn when it transferred to Broadway in 2009.

Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden played the parents in the original Broadway production.

“As soon as I saw the play I thought it would make an exciting movie,“ said Polanski. “It’s a challenge to make a film in real time, without a single ellipse.”

It is being produced by Said Ben Said through SBS Productions and is set up as French-German-Polish co-production between SBS Productions, Constantin Film Produktion and SPI Poland.

ICM is repping sales of the movie in the U.S. and Canada with SBS handling international sales.

The Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski began yesterday on the outskirts of Paris shooting his new movie, Carnage, an adaptation of a play by Yasmina Reza “Dieu du Carnage” in which Kate Winslet and also Jodie Foster will be involved, said the newspaper Le Parisien.

The newspaper said that Polanski worked on the script for his next job during the seven months under house arrest in his villa met Gstaad (Switzerland) after his arrest in Zurich in September 2009 and spending two months in prison pursuant a search and arrest warrant requested by the United States. The director, accused the U.S. of having sex with a minor 33 years ago, shot the film in English and in studies of the department of Val-de-Marne, a suburb of the capital gala.

Le Parisien recalled that the request for extradition from the United States remains in force for the open judicial proceedings against the artist is not canceled, why conference in Paris a film whose action has been decided to locate in New York.

The film tells the story of two couples trying to resolve their differences with civility when the son of one of them beats the other in the park, and the cast is also the Austrian Christoph Waltz, who won an Oscar for Best Actor Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino.

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