PRESENTATION SCRIPT.
Diversity of Kate Winslet’s performances.
Lights dim down, Spotlight focuses on the podium.
Run audio: Theme music from ‘Titanic’ Celine Dion – My heart will go on, duration 30secs (Item 1).
Presenter: English actress Kate Winslet was born 5th October 1975 in Reading, Berkshire. Her career began when she started studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, where she was head girl and appeared in a television commercial for Sugar Puffs cereal, directed by Tim Pope. Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial ‘Dark Season’ in 1991. This was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV movie Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back for ITV and an episode of medical drama Casualty in 1993, also for the BBC. (Item 5)
Video Clip: Kate Winslet in Dark Season (Item 4)
Presenter: When Kate landed the role of ‘Rose’ in the blockbuster Titanic she portrayed a young, unhappy upper class 19 year-old boarding ‘the grandest ship in the world.’ EMPIRE magazine (Item 6) says ‘Winslet herself worked hard to locate a accessible reality beneath the rich girl clichés of big hats and swooney dialogue.’ She said herself ‘And I loved my character, I really loved Rose, and to play an American, I thought that would be something amazing so I actually went into it very naively.’
Kate has the ability to take on some of the hardest roles, and still keep her personal life separate and unaffected. In the same interview (Item 6) Kate talks about playing the character ‘Sarah’ in the film Little Children, a selfish lady who engages in an affair with a happily married man. She states ‘the difficult thing in playing that part for me, aside from the accent and all of the nudity was that I realized half way through shooting that I didn’t really respect this woman I was playing. If I met her in the playground I’d just think “Oh what a flake, just pull yourself together and brush your hair and be more hands-on with your child”
Kate is asked if, as a mother, this was a tough part to play. She says ‘That was a real struggle for me, that she wasn’t as bonded with her child as I am with mine or my friends are with theirs. I’ve never seen that kind of parenting so it was very difficult to be cold with the little in some of the scenes’
Video clip: Kate in Little Children http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxO5YbQwuDw (Item?)
“It was a tough part to play because she’s nothing like me and that’s always a real stretch because you just have to divorce yourself from your life. It’s difficult to go to work and do that for 12 hours. I would always find myself in the car on the journey home from work just playing the most upbeat, loud music I could so I could run in the door and go ‘Okay kids, bath time!”
As this film was seen as her big debut, it was thought it might be hard to imagine her in a different kind of role.
In 2004 Kate landed the role of Clementine, ‘a punkish, rough edged and emotionally candid object of Jim Carrey’s disaffection’ in the indie, neo-surrealistic comedy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which surprised everyone. Her performance in it was voted top by Empire magazine (Item 6) stating ‘Clementine remains possibly the most sharply defined of all her roles. It’s also the funniest’. The character was a very different persona to see Kate Winslet, who before was most famous for her role in Titanic (Upper class corset wearing lady) to the ‘unteathered; wild and windswept’ world of Clementine. Charlie Kaufman, a writer said ‘Clementine is a kind of cartoon. Kate has this incredible ability to be cute and cartoony but also serious, she slots into her character beautifully’ the funny street shuffle, the inhaler as passive aggressive tool; the multi-personality hair-dye, the delicious directness, Winslet relishes the chance to wallow in Clementine’s vitality’ (Item 7).
Kate herself says in the interview with EMPIRE magazine (Item 6) ‘It is my favourite. It was so challenging and so much fun doing that film. I literally got to play around every day and try stuff out and push my character right to the edge. I thought that I was being so outrageous that none of what I was doing was going to make a film but a lot of it did. Yes, that was a very rewarding experience.’ Empire magazine stating ‘Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind proved her (Kate) equally able to emote without a corset (In reference to her character in Titanic)’
In another interview Kate talks about how she adapted to this abrupt change to her typical type of acting job.
‘I wanted her to look totally different from everything else I’ve ever done. I think we can safely say she does. I just knew that I had to completely change my whole persona and I was thrilled to be able to do that, and be given the opportunity to do that’ (Item 8)
Video Clip: Show Clementine’s character from 5:00 into the clip (Item 3)
In an interview with Empire Magazine (Item 6), the interviewer states ‘She (Kate) doesn’t’ let her public persona do her acting for her; she has no signature trait, like a Julia Roberts smile or a Tom Cruise air-punch. She doesn’t insist on top billing. She has the face of a movie star, but the soul and versatility of a character actress’
Kate Winslet prepares for films depending on her role, and the genre of film, for instance, in Revolutionary Road “Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the suburbs to prepare herself for the film” (Item 5) Revolutionary Road is a story of a suburban couples unhappy, closeted life. It tells a tale of a young man and woman’s dreams, and the desperate need for fulfillment. Kate worked alongside Leonardo Di’caprio who she previously worked with on her blockbuster Titanic. Directed by her husband Sam Mendes, problems with filming could possibly be expected.
An interview with last broadcast (Item 10) Kate says ‘You can over think as much as you like, but on set you really need to be willing to let everything change. That’s what I took home from Sam as a director: the feeling that it’s OK to be scared and not to feel you have to come to work and know all the answers’ She admits playing the role of April Wheeler was very challenging especially to play a couple with her Co-star when her Husband was directing it. When asked about working alongside ‘Leo’ having already stared in such an iconic film, being back on screen Kate says ‘It’s good that it’s Leo and me together because we might pull in a different audience. Leo is amazing. I genuinely think he is the best actor of his generation’
Video clip: Winslet and D’caprio in Titanic (Item 11)
Kate and ‘Leo’ having shot such highly emotional scenes in Titanic, were very compatible to work together in Revolutionary Road. Kate was also asked in the same interview (Item 10) if she found it hard working with Sam on set about a story of a failing relationship then coming home together. She said ‘We weren’t able to separate it; Sam really tried to in the beginning because quite rightly I think he felt we had to protect our sanity... If I really needed to talk about it we’d come home and I’d be full of ideas.’
Kate, in the same interview when asked if April Wheeler was a difficult character to play said ‘In the novel, she’s very highly strung bordering on hysterical sometimes. That’s OK, but I knew I could only use fragments of that. I knew I had to find a way of internalising her very big, overpowering emotions and make them come from some internal place’.
In an interview with Sight and Sound magazine, Sam Mendes, Winslets husband and director of this film says that She is ‘very focused and detail oriented, the mere way she holds herself as April shows how thoroughly she internalised the stolid, idealistic, well groomed and unhappy woman of the novel’
Flipchart: Overall Kate Winslet uses a variety of styles in both her life, and acting to incorporate the best she can achieve for her character. Her diverse approach to a range of personas stem from her ability to get into the specific characters frame of mind, preparing for that role using techniques such as watching films from that time-frame to get a grasp of what her character needs to be as believable as possible.
