Little Children Premiere at The London Film Festival: The Crowds Go Wild for Winslet
Kate Winslet's latest film, Little Children, premiered at The London Film Festival last night.
She plays Sarah, a mother who starts an affair, with disastrous results.
Suchandrika Chakrabarti reports...
The lady herself graced the red carpet with her presence, sending the shrieking crowd wild... it was quite hard to hear her comments, but here's what Kate, and director Todd Field (In the Bedroom) had to say.
Kate Winslet on the screaming crowds: "Well, you know, it’s just lovely. You think, what are you doing out here in the rain?! They’re glad to see you."
On the film's themes:
"I don’t know if there’s necessarily a message. The theme of the film is that it’s a take on reality. It has very dramatic moments but it also has some really funny moments. Sometimes I’m laughing and it’s like, why am I laughing? It’s really very much a story about people who are lonely and lost. They end up causing each other quite considerable pain. At the end there’s something really hopeful, and I can’t give it away, but there’s some hope there.
"I would describe this film as a drama and a love story and it has a lot of very funny things in it, set against a suburban backdrop. It’s really what happens within a community of people when something inexplicable, some event, happens. They’re actually very lonely and trapped human beings."
On her character:
"Sarah embarks upon an extremely torrid affair with a local man she meets. It’s about the destruction of all that.
"She’s actually quite weak. She learns who she actually is. The journey that she goes on in the film… it was really interesting and inspiring for me.
"It was the biggest challenge to play somebody who had a psychology that I didn’t really understand. I just worked on my preparation and came to the set and away we went. The actress who played my daughter was so amazing. We had gone on playdates just before filming, so she knew me. It was a wonderful experience working with her."
On the Oscar buzz surrounding her performance:
"Does it bother me? Bother me? I love it! It’s fantastic, to be in something that might be thought of that way. It’s really, really, really thrilling to me!"
Director Todd Field spoke of his admiration for the original novel. He said: "I read the book by Tom Perrotta and it was something I couldn’t stop thinking about. I was very excited about the novel, I read it about six times."
He was also full of praise for his cast. He added: "This film has wonderful performances and you should come and see Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Noah Emmerich and Sandra Bullock."
Little Children is released in UK cinemas on 3rd November.
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