Kate Winslet: The year of living seriously

In Iris, Kate Winslet gets her first opportunity to play an adult, but in her own life, motherhood and divorce have forced her to grow up fast. Nancy Mills talks to a supremely confident young woman

Kate Winslet does not look back. Not when she walks across a room; not when she evaluates her career; not when she wraps up the final details of her now-ending marriage. "I go for it and have no regrets," she says, her jaw firmly set and her eyes focused intently on her interviewer. "That's my motto. That's also Iris's motto."

"Iris" is novelist Iris Murdoch, whose heyday and decline are chronicled in this year's Miramax Oscar candidate, Iris. Winslet plays Murdoch as a young skinny-dipper, and Dame Judi Dench plays her as Alzheimer's robs her of all her power.

Up until her death two years ago, Murdoch was frequently described as "the most brilliant woman in England". Yet the most inspiring aspect of Murdoch's life could be her 43-year marriage to literary critic John Bayley. They lived happily together, without children, until 1997, when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Bayley, who had until then been the subordinate partner, suddenly found himself looking after a woman who was disappearing into herself.

He wrote in his memoirs about their early days: "It's like living in a fairy story. I'm the young man in love with a beautiful maiden who disappears to an unknown and mysterious world every now and again."

"Iris clearly didn't regret things or wallow in sad emotions," Winslet says. "She very much got on with it. She always saw the inner beauty in people. I think that's very similar to me."

Iris uses an unusual format that cross-cuts time, allowing images set 50 years apart to blend into each other. Opposite Winslet and Dench, Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent share the role of Bayley, whose memoirs are the basis for the film.

"It's a genuine love story about two people who absolutely adored and accepted each other for everything they were," Winslet says. "It's not about Alzheimer's, although that side of the story is simply the tragic truth of what did actually happen to this wonderful woman. It's more about the incredible love, commitment and support that John Bayley gave to her when she was suffering."

Although Winslet is on-screen for less than half the film, she imbues the piece with Murdoch's enormous zest for life. Whether she is arguing a literary point over lunch, swimming naked in a local pond, or bicycling madly down a country lane with Bayley in pursuit, Murdoch is a free spirit.

"Iris had an amazing ability to be in touch with her emotions and not judge herself," says Winslet, who watched documentaries and interviews with Murdoch and immersed herself in Bayley's memoirs. "She was really a person who saw the good things in life."

Winslet has flown to LA from Texas, where she is currently filming The Life of David Gale with Kevin Spacey, to talk about the film. She is both reverential towards and protective of Murdoch's reputation. She was greatly touched when Bayley told her during filming, "Oh yes, you rather do look like Iris, although Iris was a little larger and her nose was a little more snubby."

Leaning forward, Winslet says, "Iris lived her life as it came to her. She was also instinctively very private. She was bisexual and had lots of affairs with men and women at the same time. She didn't think that was wrong because she never committed herself to anyone truly.

"Then she met John, and he was the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. I think it's a universal story. We all want to be with a life partner and hope that it's everlasting. Sometimes it doesn't happen."

Winslet suddenly realises she has opened herself up for a question about the break-up of her three-year marriage to assistant director Jim Threapleton.

"The details of the divorce are completely confidential," she hedges. "Life is life, and divorce happens to lots of people. When your first priority is the happiness of your child, that is the first thing you have to think about and then act accordingly. That's simply what we did."

Until recently, Winslet was very forthcoming about her personal life, but now she says, "I'm getting more private as I get older, especially in terms of relationships. I basically won't talk about them." So there's no comment (in this interview, at any rate) about British director Sam Mendes, with whom she is currently in a relationship. At the moment, Winslet's main concern is her 15-month-old daughter, Mia. "Being a single mother is not remotely daunting," she insists. "There's an instinctive strength that just kicks in. I didn't get a nanny until she was nine months old. It's absolutely exhausting, but I wanted to experience all those things."

Winslet's cellphone rings. The nanny is checking in from Texas. Winslet looks worried at first; then she relaxes. "Did she have lunch? A snack? Good. Can I speak to her?" After a pause, Winslet asks in a sweet, motherly voice, "Are you watching Teletubbies?"

She eventually disconnects, saying, "It's bizarre that in this first year of Mia's life, I'm shooting my second movie of the year. I haven't shot two movies in one year since 1995 (A Kid in King Arthur's Court and Sense and Sensibility).

"At times, it's slightly heartbreaking. She knows when I'm going to work, and her lip starts to quiver when she waves bye-bye. But Iris required just five weeks, and The Life of David Gale six weeks.

"So I'm working 11 weeks this year, and the rest of the time I'm a mom. That's who I am now, and that's what I do."

There's a new maturity about Winslet. She no longer seems as bubbly and exuberant as she did when I first met her on the set of Sense and Sensibility, seven years ago, or even at a second meeting in 1999, when she was newly married and eagerly awaiting a phone call from her husband. "I feel very much like a woman," she agrees, "although I have my girly moments.

"Having had a child, I feel stronger and more in tune with who I am. It changes your life, but it hasn't changed me as a person. I still have enormous determination and strength. I feel as though I can accomplish anything."

Next up is David Gale, a script she read last February and immediately pursued. "I phoned my agent and said, 'Get me the number for (director) Alan Parker'," she says. "I called him and said, 'I really want to do this, although I don't know if you want me to do it'.

"I play a New York journalist interviewing David Gale, who's on Death Row. The interview takes place over the three days before his execution. It's a very clever story. While researching, I had lots of conversations with New York journalists, getting as much understanding of that world as I could."

One thing she learned was how to keep secrets. "I'm being very frank and open, and not particularly planning what I say," she explains. "But you don't really know me, who I really am. Only my family and friends will ever really know."

Winslet may omit certain truths, but her success as an actress has come at least partly because her emotions are so easily accessible. "As an actor, you have to give a lot of yourself," she admits. "You have to completely open up. You can't be guarded, shy or embarrassed about anything at all."

For her, acting is an all-consuming commitment. "I love it," she says, "but I've only ever said yes to things I feel passionate about. I wouldn't ever do a movie just for the sake of working. There is a danger you can wake up in the morning thinking, 'I can't face today'. I never want to feel that."

Iris is Winslet's first real opportunity to play an adult. "I play Iris at about 30, and I'm 26," she says. "I've always been told I'm wiser than my years, so I didn't find that too difficult. But I did worry because she's obviously far more intelligent and intellectual than I am. (While Murdoch got a degree from Oxford, Winslet grew up in an acting family and left school at 16 to make Heavenly Creatures.) I found that side of her was very much done for Judi and me because the writing was so wonderful. Her level of intellect was built into the dialogue."

Winslet also relied a great deal on Eyre, who co-wrote the script. "Whenever I enter into a new project with a new director, there's often an assumption that I know what I'm doing," she says. "I told Richard, 'Direction is important to me, particularly for this film, because Iris is such a complex person, so strong and such a big personality. Don't ever let me get away with anything. Don't ever print a take that you think I could do better'. Sometimes I'd have no idea how to play the scene, and I'd say, 'Richard, help me out. What do I do?'."

Winslet is proud of the end result. "When I watch the movie, Judi and I really feel like the same person," she says. "It was a tremendous comfort and a huge relief. The level of emotion and intellect we both had to carry is similar, and we did appear to give across the same qualities. It must have been that we both felt the same way about who Iris was."

'Iris' opens on Friday 18 January 2002