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Kate: (on walking the red carpet) One of the great, 'OK, you can breathe now moments,' is when you've gotten through the red carpet. It's like, 'Oh God, what if I trip over, what if I say something stupid, I wonder if they can see the big zit on my chin?' The relief moment is that moment when you get in the doors and there aren't any cameras and you go, 'Phew! Where's the bathroom?'
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Kate: (on the possibility of appearing naked in a film after The Reader) I don't think I will get naked in a movie again. I can't keep getting away with it and I don't want to become 'that actress who always gets her kit off'.
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Kate: (on friend and co-star Leonardo DiCaprio) It sounds naff to say this, but we are really like brother and sister. We've shared so much, I mean, on a personal level. He's got loads of my secrets, and I've got heaps of his, and I'd never tell a soul.
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Kate: (Revealing her children's frustration when she was mastering her German accent for "The Reader") They got mightily fed up with me reading bedtime stories with a German accent. They said, 'Mum, just be plain. Don't do any funny stuff like voices. Just be regular. Then I had to say, 'But, I'm not regular and I'm never going to be regular. When you're a teenager you're going to know that it's cool.'
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Kate: (revealing the state of her nerves during the 2009 awards season) To be honest with you, I'm more nervous through this award season than I have ever been before in my life. I'm still not used to it at all. I'm not exercising at all, and I'm eating whatever I like. Pressure? Gone! That's how I'm going to get through it.
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Kate: I don't feel like (a movie star) in my life at all, and I don't particularly think I behave like one. I don't have my own plane. I don't have a chef or a trainer. To me, you're a movie star only during the time when you're at the Academy Awards or at an important glamorous event. It's very much a hat that you wear, and as soon as the event's over, that hat comes off. I'm back to being me and being Mummy, and that's my priority.
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Kate: (on going naked in the film The Reader) It was the same as shooting any other scene of that nature. A scene with that level of intimacy involving nudity, you know, it's always nerve-wracking, and you really have to rehearse those scenes so that everybody knows exactly what's going on.
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Kate: I never had huge ambitions - never. I was fat. I didn't know any fat famous actresses. I just did not see myself in that world at all, and I'm being very sincere. You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. And I still sort of have that. I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city and I think, I should make more of an effort.
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Kate: (her thoughts after appearing naked in The Reader) Here we go, I have a crumble baby belly, boobs are worse for wear after two kids ... I'm doing all right. I'm 33. I don't look in the mirror and go, 'Oh, I look fantastic!' Of course I don't.
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Kate: There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me. I'm the kind of actress that absolutely believes in exposing myself.
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Kate: When you have kids, you lose any shred of vanity you may have had.
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Kate: (on why she moved to from Britain to New York, due to the British paparazzi) You'd see them (photographers) hiding in the trees and try desperately to ignore them because you don't want your child affected by it. It's weird and freaky. You just don't want someone you don't know taking a photograph of your small child. It's sick. It's better in New York. New Yorkers are much more respectful, not just the press but the people.
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Kate: (on winning over a British magazine that said she was consulting a diet doctor) I am delighted that this matter has been resolved, and the record set straight. I am not a hypocrite. I have always been, and shall continue to be, honest when it comes to body/weight issues.
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Kate:
(on bringing her family with her to L.A. for Oscar night) It's half-term vacation for my kids, so it made sense to turn the Oscars into a family holiday. We've been swimming and done lots of visits to places the kids loved.
Sam has babysat while I've tried on my frock and sorted out what I'm going to wear on the night.
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Kate: My life did change from Titanic, and for the better in many ways - but I was only 21, and there were some things that were so tough. I just thank God I never stuck a needle in my arm, or snorted cocaine or was found drunk in a gutter - I never, ever even skimmed the edges of that world. And that's really because of my parents, how they raised me and my two sisters. But my life is so drastically different now from what it was then, my day-to-day life. I have my two kids and my marriage, and it feels like it happened to another person, which makes it easier to think through.
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Kate: I've always applied the same attitude to things, an impulsive, instinctive reaction. It's hard to describe, but I often get a sense of absolute certainty - like, 'Yeah, that's the thing I really would want to do'. Maybe this is the part of me that's not very business savvy, but I never think, 'Oh, this or that will be good for me'. Only afterward will it dawn on me, where I say, 'Oh, this is good because I haven't played an everyday American woman as I do in Little Children, or a modern Englishwoman as I do in The Holiday'. It's only after I've finished it that I realize something worked out. Which is very typical of me in life. I've never been a good planner. I can plan my life and kids and everything, but in terms of work, I've never been good at it. I like the flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing. Life is more interesting then.
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Kate: The whole concept of 'grounding' children is utterly stupid. They just go off and rebel and don't like you. When my kids eventually come along, I don't want them to not like me.
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Kate: When I was 18 and 19 and 20, I would weigh myself and write it down in my diary. I'm not that person now. I have that feeling of not caring. I'm just happy being me.
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Kate: (On Brad Pitt) You know, I've never met Brad Pitt, and I'm really looking forward to shaking his hand.
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Kate: I'm not fat, I'm just not skinny any more. When I was skinny, I was really unhappy and unhealthy.
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Kate: (on her role of Iris in "The Holiday") It was the first time I've played a contemporary English woman. I was like, 'What do you mean I can't have a wig and an accent?' It was weird.
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Kate: Since I was 13 or 14, I've always felt older than I actually am.
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Kate: People say to me, 'You seem to have made this conscious decision to do independent films'. In reality, I haven't. After each movie, I always think, how different can I possibly be?... Is this going to challenge me, is this going to inspire me, and is this going to make me love my job more than I already do?
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Kate:
(on her spur-of-the-moment marriage to Sam Mendes) We hadn't been planning to do it but we thought it was rather a good idea, so we just did it.
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Kate: (talking about her screen debut in Heavenly Creatures) I was reading the script in the back of the car and I turned to my dad and yelled, 'I've GOT to get this!' And he replied, 'Then you will.' And I thought, 'Yep, that's it. I'm bloody well going to.' And that was it. I was so determined. It was something crucial to my life. I just so communicated with her, the story and their relationship. And when I found out, I just couldn't believe it. I was so happy, I cried. I remember I was working part-time at a deli at the time because I didn't have any money and was in the middle of making a sandwich when they phoned and said I'd got the job. I burst into tears and had to leave work because I couldn't control myself. It was absolutely brilliant.
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Kate: (on a nude scene in Holy Smoke) It was a difficult scene. When I read the script and I saw this scene was there, I laughed hysterically. I just couldn't believe it. When it came to shooting it, I had been sort of putting it off, and pretending it wasn't going to happen. And suddenly, I am there naked, peeing and thinking "Oh no!" It was really hard to do, but I've always loved the fact that it was there, and it's such a sort of turning point for the character I play in the movie that I've always felt sort of good, that it should be there.
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Kate: There is no way we are going to move out of England. Some might think that we want to live in Hollywood but that is not what we want at all. We will go and live in New York when it is necessary because of work but we prefer to be in England. I'm proud to be English - we both are. It's very important to me to retain that. I am an English girl and I love England. I have never felt the desire to leave. I am still ambitious and I will have to travel and live elsewhere because of that but England is always home.
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Kate: It's very important for me to make the statement that I am English and just because I've done one really big film, it doesn't mean that I don't want to keep a finger in the fantastic British film industry and do films like this.
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Kate: I'd rather do theater and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films.
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Kate: (On taking time out to be a full-time mum) I've decided to take a year off to be with the kids and watch them grow.
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Kate: I was on the tube just before Christmas. and this girl turned round to me and said, 'Are you Kate Winslet?'. And I said, 'Well, yes. I am actually'. And she said, 'And you're getting the tube?' And I said, 'Yes'. And she said, 'Don't you have a big car that drives you around?' And I said, 'No'. And she was absolutely stunned that I wasn't being driven round in some flash car all the time. It was ludicrous!
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Kate: After Titanic it would have been completely foolish for me to go and try and top that. I'm an English girl, I've always loved England, I've never felt the desire to leave it for any particular reason. And whilst I'm ambitious and care very much about what I do, I'm not competitive. I also don't want to act every day of my life. ... So it was important to me after Titanic to just remind myself of why it was that I was acting in the first place, which is of course because I love it.
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Kate: Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.
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Kate: There's more to life than cheek bones.
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Kate: Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me.
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Kate: At some stage I'm going to have to say Right, that's it. I'm stopping for a bit.
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Kate: It's funny when someone says to you 'you're hot' and all that, because I don't think of it in that way.
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Kate: Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.
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Kate: Life is short, and it is here to be lived.
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Kate: I'm a bit famous now! It's a bit strange.
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Kate: (When asked if she would have plastic surgery.) I have no intention of getting carved up or injected, thank you very much.
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Kate: (Kate on receiving her 4th Oscar nomination) I can't believe it. I am ecstatic! This nomination means so much to me. To be remembered for a film that was released a while ago, I am unbelievably honored and completely overwhelmed.
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Kate: (Kate on doing nude scenes) I like exposing myself. There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me. I'm the kind of actress that absolutely believes in exposing myself.