Will Ammonite be Kate Winslet's greatest love story?
The Oscar winning actress, who has made many of us cry thanks to her work in Titanic, The Reader, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and more, will see her latest romantic period piece make its debut on Sept. 11 at the Toronto Film Festival.
However, this time, Winslet's on-screen paramour is four-time Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan. For an in-depth profile with The Hollywood Reporter, the 44-year-old actress discussed filming passionate scenes with Ronan on Ammonite.
On one of the film's more explicit scenes, Winslet noted, "Saoirse and I choreographed the scene ourselves."
As fans will see in the recently dropped trailer, Ammonite follows fossil hunter Mary Anning (Winslet) as she develops an intense relationship with her married new apprentice (Ronan) in 1840s England. Directed by Francis Lee, the film is slated to hit theaters on Nov. 13.
"It's definitely not like eating a sandwich," Winslet continued. "I just think Saoirse and I, we just felt really safe. Francis was naturally very nervous. And I just said to him, 'Listen, let us work it out.' And we did. 'We'll start here. We'll do this with the kissing, boobs, you go down there, then you do this, then you climb up here.' I mean, we marked out the beats of the scene so that we were anchored in something that just supported the narrative."
In fact, per Winslet, it's her choreographed love scenes with Ronan that she's most proud of.
"I felt the proudest I've ever felt doing a love scene on Ammonite," she relayed to The Hollywood Reporter. "And I felt by far the least self-conscious."
If it's anything like that steamy Titanic scene, we're sold.
According to Winslet, back in 2018, she signed onto the film 12 hours after reading the Ammonite script. As the A-list actress detailed, her love for the project prompted her to drop out of Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, also starring Ronan.
"I had to pull out because I was so entrenched in Ammonite that I just freaked myself out thinking, 'Oh my God, I'd have to go to France. Come back. Then I'd only have three weeks until starting shooting Ammonite,'" she said. "And I just knew that I wasn't going to do my best, and so I had to say, 'I'm sorry.' I pulled my name out of the mix."
Winslet went on to praise the film as "a story about women speaking up, speaking out."
"I think uncovering stories where women were repressed in such a systemic way is highlighting how history has covered up those successes," Winslet shared. "We're not going to do that anymore, world."
In regard to the #MeToo movement, Winslet confirmed that "casting couches existed."
She stated, "It was very fucking real. Casting couches existed, yeah. All I can tell you is I was safe. I made sure I was. But this is a different time, and we're [now] protected by the stories of the brave people who have spoken out, and we have to look after one another, and we will not be disrespected, degraded, marginalized and undermined any fucking more. That's it. We're done. Boom!"
You can catch Winslet's full interview in the Aug. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.