FILM INTERVIEW: KATE EXPECTATIONS; AS HER LATEST FILM, FINDING NEVERLAND, IS RELEASED, WE TAKE A LOOK AT THE UPS AND DOWNS IN THE LIFE OF KATE WINSLET.Byline: ALUN PALMER She is Britain's leading young actress, has three Oscar nominations under her belt, two marriages, a couple of children and a multi-million-pound fortune - and she is still only 29. For her latest movie, Finding Neverland, Kate Winslet, picked up a cool pounds 6m putting her on the fringes of the Hollywood A List. In the film, she plays a young mother of four who provides the inspiration to author JM Barrie for his classic story Peter Pan. Here, the Ticket profiles one of British acting's most successful exports. l Finding Neverland is released today. CHILDHOOD Acting is in Kate's blood. Her parents, Roger and Sally, were both actors and her grandparents ran a theatre in Reading, Berkshire. Both her sisters - Ann and Beth - are actresses too. Her first paying gig was at 11 in a Sugar Puffs advert with the Honey Monster. She started acting lessons at the same time and appeared on stage in London and Berkshire She then landed a part in the TV drama Anglo Saxon Attitudes and the sitcom Get Back in 1993. Kate then won a part in The Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson's first major movie Heavenly Creatures (1994) before her big break in Titanic three years later. MEN Kate's romantic life, like her career, has been something of a rollercoaster. Her first real love was writer Stephen Tredre whom she dated from 1991-95. He died of cancer in 1997 aged 34. Then, while on the set of the 1998 film Hideous Kinky in Morocco, she fell for assistant director Jim Threapleton. Their marriage in a Reading church was followed by a reception at her local pub with bangers and mash More of a serving suggestion than a recipe, bangers and mash is a British colloquial name for sausage (bangers) served with mashed potatoes. The sausage may be one of a variety of flavoured sausage; such as pork, pork and apple, tomato, beef, Lincolnshire, or Cumberland. . The honeymoon was spent cycling in the Yorkshire Dales. Their first child, Mia, arrived in October 2000, but Kate's career was taking off while Jim's was still waiting on the runway. They soon split and Kate hooked up with British director Sam Mendes, who'd won an Oscar for American Beauty. Things now appear stable in Kate's life. Her career is soaring and the couple, who married last May, also have a son Joe, born in New York last December. MONEY Kate scraped along on a relative pittance before hitting the big time. For her breakthrough role in Titanic, she picked up "just" pounds 1.5m. For Finding Neverland she got a cool pounds 6m - still far below the likes of Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow. But, true to her ideal about taking on interesting projects, the roles she chose after Titanic - Enigma, Quills, and Holy Smoke - barely made her another million all told. Her total wealth is estimated at around pounds 14m - not bad for a Reading lass. STYLE At Heathrow Airport in 1998, she had the temerity te·mer·i·ty n. Foolhardy disregard of danger; recklessness. [Middle English temerite, from Old French, from Latin temerit to go on a flight dressed not in Gucci and Prada, but a pair of brown army boots and a mini skirt. Her characters, apart from in Titanic, are usually fairly dowdy dow·dy adj. dow·di·er, dow·di·est 1. Lacking stylishness or neatness; shabby: a dowdy gray outfit. 2. Old-fashioned; antiquated. n. pl. . But since hooking up with Mendes, her style has shifted upmarket up·mar·ket adj. Appealing to or designed for high-income consumers; upscale: "He turned up in well-cut clothes . . . and upmarket felt hats" New Yorker. . Gone, too, is the Thames-side house she shared with Threapleton. Instead, in came an expensive townhouse town·house or town house n. 1. A residence in a city. 2. A row house, especially a fashionable one. in the centre of London. But she is, as ever, frank about her own shortcomings. She said of her own body after the birth of her children, "My boobs were like the ears of a dog." CELLULOID CV NAME: Kate Elizabeth Winslet. PERSONAL FILE: Born October 5, 1975 in Reading, Berkshire. Her parents Roger and Sally were stage actors and her maternal grandparents ran the Reading Repertory Theatre. Aged 11, she started attending Redroofs acting school in Maidenhead. TRUE CRIME: With Mel Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures (1994) PERIOD: With Greg Wise In Sense And Sensibility Sense and Sensibility is a novel by the English novelist Jane Austen, that was first published in 1811. It was the first of Austen's novels to be published, under the pseudonym "A Lady". (1995) TIP OF THE ICEBERG: Titanic (1997) gave Kate her big break RAUNCHY raun·chy adj. raun·chi·er, raun·chi·est Slang 1. a. Obscene, lewd, or vulgar: "[He] : De Sade biopic bi·o·pic n. A film or television biography, often with fictionalized episodes. biopic Noun Informal a film based on the life of a famous person [bio(graphical) + pic(ture)] Quills (2000) DRAMA: Hideous Kinky (1998) was shot in Morocco NOMINATION: Kate was up for an Oscar for Iris (2001, left). The Life Of David Gale (2003, right) AFFAIR: With Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004) Kate is the youngest actress ever to be nominated for two Oscars (Sense And Sensibility, 1995, and Titanic in 1997 aged just 22). She was considered for the lead role in Bridget Jones's Diary in 2001 but was thought to be too young. CAPTION(S): BIOPIC: Kate in Finding Neverland; BABE: Kate, two; FAMILY: The Winslets; CANCER: Tredre; WEDDING: Kate marries Jim (left) and baby Mia is born; HAPPY: Kate and husband Sam Mendes; ON SET: Kate gets made-up for her role in Titanic; RIVERSIDE: The house she shared with Jim Threapleton; KOOKY: Army boots |
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