Kate Winslet says working with director Roman Polanski is “extraordinary”.

The actress stars in the film adaptation of the play God Of Carnage which is helmed by Polanski and described how the aging movie legend’s positive attitude affected the cast.

However, the 35-year-old said that the filmmaker is a tough taskmaster nonetheless.

“Roman is extraordinary. He’s 77 years old and has a joyful, effervescent quality that’s very infectious,” she told Total Film.

“None of us knew what to expect, because Carnage is based on a play, but we ended up learning the whole thing, staging it and rehearsing it like a play and then filming from the beginning to the end in ruthless order. Roman said it was the first time he’d ever filmed that way, but it was necessary for this particular piece.”

Winslet feels lucky to have worked with him and several other high-profile directors over the last year. While the famous filmmakers she were all incredibly different, they were also unique in their brilliance.

“Todd Haynes, Steve Soderbergh and Roman Polanski are all so unbelievably different, and I feel like I’ve seen this whole spectrum of creative brilliance in the past year,” she said.

Source: Yahoo! OMG!

Kate Winslet has “set the bar” in her career and now she wants to work at maintaining it.

The Hollywood actress, who is renowned for her roles in movies such as Titanic and The Reader, doesn’t want to get complacent when it comes to her successful movie career.

The 35-year-old, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Hanna Schmitz in 2008 movie The Reader, insists there’s always things left to accomplish.

“I set the bar, and the bar is how good my work is, so it’s still about working hard, reading and making sure I bring something to the character that is true and sincere,” she said in an interview with Total Film.

The blonde beauty — who has two children Mia, ten, and seven-year-old Joe — feels lucky that she is still a major player in the film industry.

Kate says despite her determined nature, she doesn’t encourage herself to continually “top” her previous achievements.

“I’m fortunate that I’m still being invited along for the ride by great people,” she explained. “Awards and nominations are extraordinary, but at the same time it would be a mistake to ever think, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to top that.'”

Source: Musicrooms.net

When St. John replaced Angelina Jolie with Karen Elson they made it clear they were going in search of their roots.

They’d gotten lost along the way, chasing the youth factor, hiring an actress instead of Kelly Gray to be their face and re-working their stable of classics. But now it appears as if they’ve steadied, and they’re jumping back on the A-list bandwagon. It makes sense that the first face of the new St. John would be Kate Winslet.

Winslet’s one of the few A-list actors who feels accessible — everyone loves her even though she’s gorgeous, wealthy and ridiculously talented. She’ll appeal to the classic St. John customer as well as a younger crowd, and the other brand she reps, Lancôme, is perfectly aligned with St. John.

WWD reports they’re shooting the fall ads in New Jersey, with Craig McDean, today.

Source: Elle

Kate Winslet doesn’t travel on private jets because she wants to keep her children’s lives as normal as possible.

The 35-year-old British actress has daughter Mia, ten, from her first marriage to director Jim Threapleton and seven-year-old son Joe with estranged husband Sam Mendes.

Kate, who is renowned for her roles in blockbusters such as Titanic and The Reader, doesn’t want her Hollywood lifestyle to interfere with her kids’ upbringing.

“It’s very important to me to keep things as simple and normal as possible. They go to a regular school and I don’t ever want them to feel that there is a lifestyle difference between them and their friends because of what I do,” she told Hello! magazine. “And there really isn’t that much of a difference — it would be something if every time we got on to a plane it was a private jet, but we don’t live like that.”

The Hollywood beauty appreciates her success but is happy to forget about it when it comes to being a mother. Kate loves that her children respect her being an actress and understand everything that comes with the job.

“It’s really just about me being the mother I want to be, and not making any huge changes to our lifestyle based on my success. I give them what I feel they need from me as a mum, and the success and fame part just stays at the door,” she explained. “The kids respect the fact that I do the job. I do it because I love it, and that means a lot to me.”

Source: Musicrooms.net

Kate Winslet finds it hard to make time for herself without “feeling guilty about it”.

The Revolutionary Road actress devotes so much time to her children — 10-year-old Mia, her daughter with first husband Jim Threapleton, and seven-year-old Joe, her son with second spouse Sam Mendes, who she split from in March 2010 — she has joked she has forgotten how to “sit down”, and has to force herself to make time to just relax.

She said in an interview with Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “Any mother knows the last person you think about is yourself. I’ve been a mother for 10 years and I’m still trying to figure out how to give time to myself without feeling guilty about it.

“Sometimes I’ll sit down and I’ll go, ‘Oh it’s just nice to sit down,’ because truly, I’ve forgotten how to do that.

“You forget to sit down and not worry about what needs to be done for the kids, just take time for yourself and pick up a book or read a recipe. I tell myself ‘Just. Sit. Down.’ it’s a challenge.”

Kate, 35, also revealed she is enjoying her 30s and feels much more secure in herself and prepared for the challenges of life than she did in her 20s.

She added: “I think that for a lot of women, our 20s are a time of really figuring things out and figuring out what we’re really about. Of course, at the time, we think we know exactly who we are, we think we’ve done all the growing emotionally . And then along come our 30s and it’s all different again.

“I’m really enjoying my 30s, actually. I have so much more life experience than I did when I was 25 and that’s a real luxury.”

Source: The Independent

Painstakingly constructed settings are usually reserved for epic science fiction fantasies where directors have unparalleled freedom to create digital environments, but there are no superheroes in a Todd Haynes film — just empathetic, flawed human beings acting out their lives in minute period detail. Haynes became a cult icon when his 43-minute short film Superstar (1987), the tragic saga of anorexic pop star Karen Carpenter told using Barbie dolls, was banned from circulation because of copyright issues. (Bootleg copies can still be viewed on YouTube.) Haynes, who was born in Los Angeles in 1961, has been tweaking societal conventions ever since. As a pivotal member of the New Queer Cinema movement, he enraged conservative politicians with frank depictions of gay sex in Poison (1991), then upended his own audience’s expectations four years later, with the jarring hypochondriac drama Safe (1995). Subsequent films such as Velvet Goldmine (1998), Far From Heaven (2002), and I’m Not There (2007) manage to embrace both experimental and formal aims, like academic theses wrapped in sweeping, melodramatic arcs. Throughout his career, the director has explored how women have navigated visible and invisible levers of power. “I’m drawn to female characters,” he tells Kate Winslet, his self-professed “other Coen brother” and star and co-producer of his new HBO miniseries, Mildred Pierce. “And not all of them are strong characters.” Airing this spring, the five-part miniseries tells the story based on the novel by James M. Cain, of a resilient but imperfect woman who struggles to raise a family in Great Depression–era Los Angeles. Winslet recently spoke with Haynes, who was at his home in Portland, Oregon, about, among other things, Mildred Pierce, why he’s never made a film set in the contemporary world, and the challenge of letting things go.

Continue reading Kate Winslet interviews “Mildred Pierce” director Todd Haynes

Thomas Keller taught Adam Sandler.

Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger taught the cast of Tortilla Soup.

Michael White taught Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.

Celebrity Chefs are adding yet another title to their vast array — cooking teachers to Hollywood stars. With more and more culinary-themed films being produced, this is a lucrative growth area for celebrity chefs.

If you are watching HBO’s miniseries, Mildred Pierce, you’re going to see Tom Colicchio student Kate Winslet as a restaurant owner.

How good was Tom’s teaching?

That seems to depend on what Kate is cooking.

Take a look at what she told David Letterman back in 2009. The big question then: “With an average two wounds per meal, does Kate Winslet belong in the kitchen?” Apparently, she really needed lessons, at least something along the lines of occupational safety and health.

Source: Super Chef