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Most
recent items posted first:
From
the "It's Friday" Baz Bamigboye column for the Daily Mail
newspaper, June 29, 2001:
"Kate
Pursues Her Passion"
Kate
Winslet is closing in on her dream project, and she wants it to be a
"dangerous exploration of adultery and sex." The
Oscar-nominated actress wants to turn Therese Raquin, Emile
Zola’s 19th-century tale of lust and murder, into a modern-day look at
forbidden love.
"This
is a tale of true passion," Kate told me. "A married woman is
in love with another man and together they plot to kill the husband.
It’s passion that drives them to it," she said. "You can
make the story much more accessible if it’s updated and made modern,"
she added.
Director
David Leveaux has worked on several drafts of the script, updating
Zola’s explosive tale. Kate
herself has been closely involved as an executive producer. Husband Jim
Threapleton will also work on the film through their production company
Ultra Films. [Note: Incorrect company name]
"It’s
definitely going to happen at the end of the year," Kate said.
"We pushed it back because we didn’t know what was going to
happen with the proposed actors’ strike in America. It may not happen,
but we couldn’t take the chance. I have wanted Therese Raquin to
happen for a long time and there are various parties working to ensure
that it does," she told me on the set of Iris, the film
about author Iris Murdoch which also stars Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent.
Kate will play the younger Iris in the movie.
"I
want to do good roles, whether they’re leading roles or supporting
roles," she said. "Geoffrey Rush was the lead in Quills
and there’s no way you could call my part the lead - but I was happy
to do it," she said. She and Rush will be working together again in
The Magician’s Wife, and this time they will share top billing.
Kate
can be seen next opposite Dougray Scott in Michael Apted’s movie Enigma,
when it’s released in the UK in the autumn.
January
12, 2001: Kate talks about the project during an interview for Fox News:
Q:
Is there anything we can expect to see you in soon?
Winslet: Well, I'm doing a movie which we were suppose to shoot last
year, but then I had (new baby) Mia and that was completely impossible.
So we're shooting the movie starting in August. [Has since been
delayed.] I will be the executive producer in the movie and playing the
title role. I am very excited about that and really looking forward to
getting into it.
Q: Is this your first time executive producing?
Winslet: Yes, it's my first time. You have to go to all of these
meetings about budgets and things like that. It's all complicated but
really good fun, and I'm pleased to do it.
From
Interview Magazine, November 2000 issue:
Producer Lynda Obst: Are you interested in
producing as a way of controlling the material, or more in terms of your
own life and schedule?
Kate: I've always said one day it would be great to produce something,
never thinking that I would be able to do it by myself. But the
reason I got involved with Therese Raquin was, it was a book that
I read at seventeen, and I sort of developed this kind of very heady
sort of sweaty obsession with it.
Obst: [laughs] Sounds great.
Kate: I just became really addicted to it in the way that you become
addicted to, I don't know, cigarettes or chocolate. It just fed me in
some way, and I read it over and over again. And a few years ago, having
gained a little bit more knowledge, I thought, God, that book would make
a brilliant film. And it just so happened somebody then said, 'Well,
there's a script of it already.' And because I had such an attachment to
this story, I wanted to be involved with seeing the film made in the
best possible way.
Obst: And it's a wonderful thing to do with the leverage that you won
from your hard work.
From
an 2000 interview with Mr. Showbiz:
Q: You've just finished Quills, and Therese Raquin is up
next. Why make consecutive period films?
A: I chose to do Quills last year, which is the Marquis de Sade
movie, because it's a fantastic script. It's an ensemble piece and they
are heaps of fun. It wasn't a conscious decision to do a period movie.
It was something that grabbed me.
Q: Why Therese Raquin?
A: I loved the novel. I'd read the novel when I was 17 years old and was
so excited I read it twice and told all my friends to read it and gave
copies to my sisters and mother. Last year, I stumbled across the
screenplay and just could not believe it. I wanted to die!
Q: You're also executive producer on that.
A: I wanted to be creatively involved. I wanted to see it get funding
and see who the other actors would be. And it's just because I deeply
care about this story. As an actor you can only make so many suggestions
before someone else has the final say. As an executive producer it's a
more collaborative, more exciting way of doing things. And it's new.
Q: Did you do much research?
A: Therese we start shooting in June and we start pre-production
in April. In a couple of months' time I'll be looking into that, into
the period more than anything else, and the women of that time.
From
an interview with David Poland for Rough Cut, February 2000:
KW: I'm doing a movie called Therese Raquin, which is another version of
Emile Zola's novel.
DP: Which you're also producing. Are you lining up more projects
to produce, or do you want to?
KW: Talk to me in about eight month's time and I'll either be
bored and thin and withered, or very glowing, very happy. The results
will be in my face. We shall see. I don't know. We'll see how this goes.
I was really nervous about it, because lots of people are executive
producing and sometimes you feel that person did it for the wrong
reason. I've avoided it for a long time because of the whole trend of
it. But I'm doing it because I read this book when I was 17 years old
and it rocked my world. Changed everything for me. I told all my
girlfriends to read it, my mum, my sisters, whoever. When I stumbled
across the screenplay, I thought, 'My God, I've got to be in this.' He
is a first time director who is just a truly a magnificent man. Of
course, David Leveaux is from England. I thought I would love to see
this get there. I'd love to see us get the funding, be involved with the
casting of the other actors, and I've met so many great crew members
over the last few years. I was determined to get nice people working on
it. Good people. We'd have a good time and a hardworking time, and it's
just nice to see this thing growing. Fantastic.
From
a 2000 interview:
It
sort of happened very accidentally. And, believe me…this 'executive
producer' thing is something that I have really avoided like the plague.
Cause I see a lot of people doing it, it's becoming a bit of a trend,
and stuff, and, you know, I like to be a little bit different…And I've
never felt the need to do it, either. I've always been really happy
reading scripts and finding the ones that I love and going off and doing
it.
But with Therese, I read the novel when I was 17 and it just… my whole
world exploded when I read this book. And I read it again immediately.
Literally finished reading it, went straight back to page one and
started reading it all over. I gave it to my sisters, I gave it to my
mother, all my closest friends - 'you've got to read this book, you've
got to read this book.' Put it away, stumbled across the screenplay,
literally stumbled across the screenplay. Could not believe that someone
had done this adaptation. I was so excited, immediately on the phone to
all the casting people and director - 'I've got to meet with you.' Sat
with a director, who is a great guy called David Leveaux, who is a
theater director from England. This is his first feature. And, you know,
we talked. And I said, 'well, you know, I really want to do this.' And
that decision was made.
And then I just thought, 'now, look - because I care so much about this
story, and because I've always loved it, you know, now could be the time
to really be creatively involved with it, and just try and make it the
greatest film that we can.' So, it's nice to know that I was involved…
we then immediately got all the funding, which was just so great. And
that was the first time I ever used a little bit of that 'Titanic'
power, you know. We just went 'funding' [snaps fingers] and it came. And
it was like… it was fantastic. And I really feel sort of glad that
I've been able to do that for everyone who's been involved with
'Therese', in the writing of the script and the other producers and so
on. Because they were struggling, for a long time, to try and get the
funding. But it's just nice to know that I'm, you know, I'm going to be
involved with the casting of the other actors, where we're gonna shoot
it, and so on. And, also, over the last sort of five or six years I've
met some fantastic crew members, you know, brilliant, brilliant people
who are artists in their own right. And I'm just excited that, you know,
I can get all of those people in - all the ones that I think are great,
who are really nice. Cause I really believe that when you work on a
film, if the 'on set' environment is a happy one, then I think it makes
for a better story, cause everyone's happy to be there, you know,
they're happy to work. So, that's the reason why, and sort of no other
reason than that."
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