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Kate Winslet: One woman Hollywood can't ignore | Holiday-Winslet-Black_l
COMMERCIAL BREAK The Holiday (with Jack Black) stands to be Winslet's most cineplex-friendly film since Titanic
Zade Rosenthal

Since her own red-carpet debut, Winslet has purposefully steered clear of Hollywood's stock roles for actresses — the girlfriend or the girl fending off a killer. In Little Children, she plays an adulterous mother who, according to director Todd Field, handles her child ''like a piece of luggage she's dragging through the airport.'' Field, who fell hard for Winslet's work (''so alive and mad and engaging'') in Eternal Sunshine, praises his star's desire to embrace such an everyday, flawed character. ''As actors,'' says Field, who himself starred in movies like Eyes Wide Shut before making his directorial debut with the Oscar-nominated In the Bedroom, ''we get rewarded for doing things that are our stock in trade: playing someone with a handicap or changing your gender or playing someone like Roosevelt. But what Kate's done with this woman is make tiny, tiny brushstrokes that run the emotional gamut.''

Signing up to play a cheating spouse was, strangely, an easier decision for Winslet than accepting Meyers' offer to costar with Cameron Diaz in The Holiday. ''There's a certain amount of potential for exposure as a human being that goes hand in hand with being involved in a bigger studio picture like that,'' she explains. ''And so I just had to take a deep breath and say, Well, first of all, do I want to play this part? The answer was immediately yes. I might not have to fall apart weeping and drowning and dying by the end of the movie, but I actually love a good popcorn film. I love Maid in Manhattan! I love Something's Gotta Give! But then I did have to think of the other side of it, the fact that I hadn't done something that commercial since Titanic. I took a deep breath and decided it was time.''

As Meyers began previewing The Holiday for test audiences, she was cheered by the warm response to Winslet. ''For young women to look at her as opposed to the girls in Us Weekly is terrific. Everything about her just screams smart. I think she'll keep going and going, giving great performances at every age.''


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