Kate Winslet shares her acting secrets

I don't think it's a case of really looking for things more kind of being inspired or excited by the unexpected actually half the time I find myself reminding myself of the importance of keeping an open mind and being really scared by the prospect of playing certain types of roles and um and surprised by my desire to face those challenges I've learned a lot about preparation over the years and actually um it's so important to let the preparation go because you know you can get stuck in this little sort of tunnel all of your own beatling away at home and preparing who you think the character is but the reality is you have to leave so many sort of blank spaces for other people to fill by way of the director and the other actors and and the things that they think and also what they are bringing to the project through the roles that they're playing or what the director has to say if I am playing a role in a film that is an adaptation of a book I would always read the book work unless I had been specifically asked not to by the director but um often for me I find that incredibly useful and I will always find myself referring back to the book almost obsessively actually um it sort of becomes my armor my my friend um particularly in the case of Revolutionary Road and the reader both of those films I remember really I just would scour the book for pieces of information that surely the writer hadn't found or surely the director hadn't seen um and I always really enjoy that you know there are challenges in every single day the biggest one to be honest with you I think is being able to stay focused because you can rehearse and you can plan everything and you can think you have a you know a framework that you want to stick with or a few ideas that you want to remember to keep in your back pocket and sometimes the craziness of an onset environment can be so intense that you can find yourself forgetting all of those things that you plan so actually really really staying focused and knowing that it's okay to kind of take your yourself off into a quiet corner and just remember what it was that you had set out to do um and also just being very accepting of everyone really because actors can be quite weird and you know they all have their sort of ticks and ways and it's you know it's such a privilege to see how odd everyone is but at the same time it can really affect your day and how you're playing a role if you allow yourself to be caught up in someone else's stuff or someone else's process and so just being accepting and sort of enjoying them for everything that they are one thing that's always helped me is really never judging other people there's always going to be something that they'll land on in the end and often we all just have to go through a bunch of silly stuff first in order to get to that place and you know that doesn't happen unless you just let it you know just because I've had a lot of experience it certainly doesn't mean that there are certain things that I'm really getting right or or or nailing I mean I would almost hope the opposite because I want to always be finding new ways of being able to collaborate and being able to be um included and involved and excited and and and passionate um the experience of making a film um you know can often be really very very hard and and it can you know can leave one sort of feeling okay I'm okay with the fact that that's over now and then lo and behold you know the thing will come out and it'll be incredibly fantastic even more than you could possibly have expected so throughout my life that has always been the case every filming experience is very very different to the finished product with possibly with the exception of Sense and Sensibility which was just absolutely glorious in every respect to make and completely glorious to watch and still is for me to this day another question that I'm often asked is you know could you help me in any way or could you and it's a funny thing because actors can't really help other actors and I find that quite frustrating because I wish I could you know because I'm sure there are so many actors out there who would give their right arm just to be in one scene of a film um with no lines I think what I would honestly say to people starting out you know it is difficult it is definitely a hard job to do and and you do have to keep working at it you do have to keep practicing things you have to allow yourself to make mistakes you know make them rehearse in your bedroom try not to look in the mirror too much because then you can you rehearse a scene in front of a mirror and you like the way you've said something or done something and all you will do is keep picturing yourself doing it the way you liked rather than being completely present in the moment no looking in mirrors that's not good you have to keep at it you do and if it is the thing that you really believe you want to do with your life you will get there you just have to keep going and keep going and keep yourself busy you know don't wait for the phone to ring you know fill your life in other areas because the more you enrich your life the more enriched you'll be as a as an actor and as a person and and you'll be able to bring much more to each role that you hopefully will get the chance to play I got into a lot of research um with a film I did called Dangerous Method and then I did actually all around that period it was very very research heavy so it would be whatever the thing was based on and then I'd go off on a tangent and read just absolutely everything I went to University I studied English I met Steven fry Hugh Lori Robie called train Ben Elton we all did comedy together sketch comedy for two years after I left University at the very least I did my own sketch show I did musical theater I did mime I did uh all sorts of stuff I didn't act until I was 27 years old