Kate Winslet

[kafka]

sharpteeth said:

Misconception or not, I'm amazed that she wants to debunk it. Imagine protesting that your husband isn't academic and doesn't spend his spare time reading.

I'm not amazed. As I've said before, she comes across as mercenary and fake. I think it's totally in character for her to make the comment with the intention of driving home the point, "No, my husband isn't something as measly as a poor professor. He's a big Hollywood STAR!" Not that I think professors are bad, measly or anything, but I think she does.

As for my Sam Mendes stories, they're not particularly juicy. My other half's brother and sister-in-law own a restaurant in London at which I worked up until last year. He regularly dines there - usually without Kate. He has hosted several private "parties" (well, dinners) there and was condescending and rude the first time I had the pleasure of serving/meeting him. The second time he was downright unpleasant toward my sister-in-law (who is the joint owner, not just some lowly server as I was) and reduced her to tears over the waiting time for the special selection platter he ordered for someone who didn't like the menu (which is always "set" for the month, as he well knew) though of course he hadn't requested any special dishes and just had high and mighty expectations.

Charming. <snort> And very much in character with my perception of him.

Obviously, I can only assume that he's farfarfar nicer to people who aren't members of the service industry and are more on his level. He continues to dine at the restaurant though, as it's the only one of its kind in town. He was there with Harvey Keitel last time...for what it's worth. Mr Keitel was delightful, and has what I can only describe as a "mega-watt" smile despite being haggard. Not that that's on topic. ;-)

Hm. To me, the fact that he's hanging around with Harvey Keitel just accentuates my negative impressions of Mendes. My cousin was with Keitel for a long time and he f****d her up, well and good. I have a deep-seated, intense, very personal loathing for that man and I wouldn't be sorry at all if he dropped dead. "Hate" is probably too mild a term for what I feel. He's vermin, toxic and sick.

If Mendes is best buddies with Keitel, then that's the final nail in his coffin for me.

*slinking out to stick head into freezer*

[jaghetersimon]

OMG, I want the Keitel dirt NOW!!

[sharpteeth]

jaghetersimon said:

OMG, I want the Keitel dirt NOW!!

Me too. I feel so deceived..

I'm starting to think she might be a wee bit fake, too, actually. Hmm.

[zivvie]

orchidthief, I get ya. As other posters have said, you can really tell a lot about a person by how s/he treats those in the service industry. I really do wonder what Kate sees in Sam sometimes.

[Deleted]

I'm not amazed. As I've said before, she comes across as mercenary and fake. I think it's totally in character for her to make the comment with the intention of driving home the point, "No, my husband isn't something as measly as a poor professor. He's a big Hollywood STAR!" Not that I think professors are bad, measly or anything, but I think she does.

I think her comments are a little suspect but I think her intentions are more along the lines of "He isn't an academic, he is NORMAL and jolly! Just like me! Really. Even though I have been a major star for almost ten years, I am just like you, dear reader, and I have a husband who is in no way pretentious." She seems to want to disassociate herself with the Hollywood lifestyle in spite of the fact that she is part of a high-powered Hollywood couple. I think she wants people to think of her as "typical" and "normal" NOT a major star married to a major director.

I like her and I like her movies. She does seem to try too hard to seem like all is great in her normal life, but it doesn't really bother me. I think she is one of the most consistent actresses working today. I don't always love her movies, but I usually love her performances. I will pretty much see anything she is in (and probably like it).

[kafka]

jaghetersimon said:

OMG, I want the Keitel dirt NOW!!

It wouldn't be proper for me to give details because it isn't my life. And, frankly, everything I'd say would be so damn graphic, revoltingly disgusting, unbelievably sick, that even the smallest, minor thing would be too much and a violation of her privacy. Let's just say she was with him for quite a long time, that she'd always had problems of her own, but nothing --- NOTHING --- like what he did to her, put her through, or had after dealing with him.

IMO, the man is a sick, degenerate, mysogynistic, perverted, F****d up bastard.

On a non-personal note, he is older than the 68 listed on IMDb. He was 67 or so when my cousin was with him and that was about 5 years ago. So, born in 1939 my ass! You have NOOOOOOOOOO idea how many plastic surgeries and stuff that man has had done to him.

God, just talking about him makes me want to bathe in Lysol. He always makes me feel so damn dirty that I can barely breathe and I certainly can't ever see him on television or in a film without hyperventilating from sheer rage.

Topic? Who knows. I'm too damn angry at the thought of him. Oh, yes, I know. Mendes is an ass. And if he's close friends with Keitel, then he's a jackass bastard of monumental proportions. And I don't buy the whole Kate-is-sweet thing. Never did but particularly not these days. I think she wanted someone who could make her big and she went for Mendes, then the up-and-coming hot director with the magic touch.

And I don't buy her whole: "I never cheated on my husband with Mendes. No, it was 2 weeks later and after the marriage broke down, that I met him and we fell in love right away." Sorry, I just don't. Nor do I believe anything in this interview from the time of her marriage to Mendes .

I don't buy it because I think they hid their relationship as they've hid much else. For example, Kate said this about rumours of wedding Mendes back in 2003:

Titanic actress Kate Winslet is highly amused at reports she's set to wed her film-maker boyfriend Sam Mendes. The British beauty, 27, who divorced film-maker Jim Threapleton in 2001, has stepped forward to insist once again that she and 37-year-old Road To Perdition director Mendes have made absolutely no plans to walk down the aisle together. She says, "It's absolutely hilarious! There were articles that he'd proposed with a ruby engagement ring. Hello? I've never had a ruby in my life! Sam's never even given me a ring! We've never even had this conversation."

But this came almost 8 months after reports that:

Kate Winslet's relationship with director Sam Mendes is reportedly in trouble - because the actress can't get him to commit to marriage. The pair got together after the Titanic star's surprise split from husband Jim Threaplton last year - but friends of the movie twosome report their relationship has become strained with Winslet's recent pleas for increased commitment from the American Beauty filmmaker. A source tells British newspaper the Daily Mirror, "It is fair to say it hasn't been easy in the last few weeks. Kate wants more commitment out of Sam but he is perfectly happy with the ways things are. He doesn't want to feel as if he is being forced into marriage. Sam likes a more free-wheeling lifestyle. Both of them work in high pressure environments but Sam is self contained. He is perfectly happy to live and work in his own little shell. Kate is really surprised by this, so things have been strained between them. Sam is not as emotional as Kate." When asked about his relationship with Kate earlier this week, Mendes replied, "There are no plans to work together, and no plans for marriage."

Then, a few months after the "No, we're not marrying" denials, they got married. Secretly.

I treat the whole "no, no, no, we never had an affair. Mendes never broke up my marriage" thing, as much of the same hogwash. She protested too much about the supposed non-affair, about the supposed non-marriage, and about much else. IMO, the lady doth protesteth too much.

[all quotes taken from newspaper articles linked and quoted on IMDb. While I know the latter isn't always accurate, I'm going by reports at the time. I just wish I could find the thing I read at the time which implied heavily that she cheated on him.]

[plush]

thursdaynext said:

I think her comments are a little suspect but I think her intentions are more along the lines of "He isn't an academic, he is NORMAL and jolly! Just like me! Really. Even though I have been a major star for almost ten years, I am just like you, dear reader, and I have a husband who is in no way pretentious."

I thought she had a problem with people thinking her husband is too academic not because that's intimidating on the masses and she's really just one of us but because academic/professor implies monotonous, the anti coolness and that means Kate would be uncool by association because she married some boring man.I could be wrong, but I don't think it's pretentious to say that you read Shaekspeare even these days because a lot of people still do, unless of course the person who says so is Gwyneth Paltrow.


Nice juice on Mendes/Keitel stories. Keitel always looked sort of slimey to me and I have no idea why because I've never paid any attention to him, nor have I heard any dirt on him. It was just a gut feeling.

[Deleted]

Urgh, Sam sounds like a dick.

Kate has said in the past that she's extremely intimidated by academic, "smart" people, and always feels kind of self-concious about the fact that she left school when she was fifteen. Despite her highbrow, corsetty persona, she's not particularly bookish or cerebral at all, I think. So maybe that comment was kind of a manifestation of that little hangup, somehow.

[kafka]

couldcatchamonkey said:

So maybe that comment was kind of a manifestation of that little hangup, somehow.

Missy's got almost as many hang-ups as Gwhiney. <sniff>

[foxfair]

Isn't Kate Oxbridge? I could have sworn I've read that...

Kate has said Emma noticed she was undereating and gave her a big angry lecture on how losing weight would be wrong for the movie and wrong for Kate, and then Kate says she snapped out of it.

This is from the last page but I just want to say that I find Emma Thompson lecturing Kate on her weight in either sense (i.e. eat more OR eat less) kind of offensive. Not seriously offensive, just a little.

Also, I am going to see if I can get any more info on Mendes. I always wondered if it was a bad moment or something but it looks like he actually is an all-around dick. That comment comparing Jarhead to Bunuel etc. - dude, PLEASE! Take OFF the Pants of Pretentiousness!