Notorious Interviews With Celebrities: Kate Winslet for Vogue UK, 1998
Ready to revisit some infamous interviews with celebrities? Previously, we read a thirsty interview with Chris Evans and a diva interview with Jennifer Lopez. But this time, it's Kate Winslet for Vogue UK, 1998.
1998 was a different era. Kate wasn't given the cover of Vogue even though she was starring in Titanic, because of her weight.
And she didn't censor anything she said. Here is the very first line of the profile:
It's nice to know that an English rose can have thorns but, frankly, Kate Winslet is scaring me.
And it only gets worse better from there.
Kate Winslet: Girl Overboard
by Emma Forrest
- Having barely acknowledged my presence in the two hours I've been at the photoshoot , she suddenly fixes me with her ice-blue movie-star eyes and asks, "Do you write a lot for Vogue?" I watch as she twists a cluster of grapes around her beautifully manicured nails. "Actually this is my first article." She plucks a grape from its stems. "Well, do try to make it good. Maybe they'll use you again." She pops the grape into her heart-shaped mouth.
- I get the feeling that she is uncomfortable with me because we're the same age. Years seem to matter to her; when I mention that Alicia Silverstone is still a teenager, Winslet pointedly insists, " No, I think you'll find she's the same age as me." It turns out that Alicia is two years younger - but nevermind.
- [Winslet swans around with the team at the photoshoot, ignoring the writer.] I feel like the school outcast. Later I will ask straight out if I have done something to offend her and, horrified, she will squeal: "Oh no, no, no! I'm just terribly intimidated by intelligence." How smart does she think I am? All I did was shake her hand and say, " Hello, nice to meet you."
- "I'm just so honoured to work for her," says Amanda, Winslet's personal assistant, who, like her employee, is blonde, pale and seriously curvy. If they were a set of Russian dolls, Amanda would be the biggest doll and Kate the third or fourth biggest. Amanda is very pleasant but I sense that Kate likes her partly because she reminds her of what she used to be.
- Our minicab driver manoeuvres his way out of the Islington evening traffic and Amanda congratulates him with, " Oh, well done! You are gorgeous." Kate slumped in the back, remains disinclined to have any kind of preliminary chat.
- "Amanda mentioned that you're doing the film of Esther Freud's Hideous Kinky," I remark, twisting to face her. "Yes I bloody am." Silence.
- "Well, I don't know if you saw but [Justine Frischman] named you as one of her 10 favourite women of the year." Kate sits bolt upright. "Oh, how brilliant! How lovely!... Oh, that's marvellous! It's so brilliant to get feedback." Kate beams at me - " Brilliant!" - and touches my arm. Something has clicked and for the next hour Kate Winslet is quite delightful.
- Despite the high-profile relationship and her friendship with Emma Thompson, she says it is mainly crew members, as opposed to film actors, who she has kept in touch with.
- When Kate is out of the room, Amanda conspiratorially admits that she has sneaked one of the Polaroids from the photoshoot. She coos over the picture. "She looks so lovely. I'm so proud of her." Kate wanders over and says, " I think I look drunk." Giggling, Amanda concedes, "Yes, you do a bit." Kate snatches it from her hand, snapping, "Fine, I'll have it then."
- And it's happened again. For our taped conversation, Winslet speaks movingly about her family, her friends, and, when she was out of earshot, Amanda herself. Yet here she goes again, like the queen of the world.
- The metamorphosis is sharp, and seems typical of the temperamental swings I'd already witnessed. This afternoon, her mood has been darkened by the presence of someone around her age (me), the mention of a successful star who's even younger (Alicia Silverstone) and a friend she believed was criticising her appearance (Amanda). One imagines that becoming thin - thin enough to get romantic leads in Hollywood epics - would boost the confidence. But it seems that Kate Winslet is just as insecure... Her skin is still thinner than her body.
The journalist who interviewed her, Emma Forrest, later said: "She [Kate] hates me after the Vogue feature ... You know, she set her press people on me."
EDIT: As many commenters have noted, the journalist does a lot of editorializing and def comes across as insecure. But, in my opinion, Kate comes off pretty rude, too.
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