Kate the great: Kate Winslet talks about “Wonder wheel”

“It’s really interesting how every single job I do I feel like it really is different each time”, Winslet says on a sweltering fall day in New York. “I think it’s kind of like staring at a really untidy room of mess and clutter. You think: ‘Oh fuck! Where do I begin?’ The clutter is different every time, and the piles will be different every time. It always feels a bit like moving trash around a room”.

Her latest role, as a deeply troubled housewife in Woody Allen’s “Wonder Wheel”, presented the actress with challenges she’s never had to face. Her character, Ginny, is an unpleasant narcissist in 1950s Coney Island, who carries on an affair with a self-absorbed lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) under the nose of her husband (Jim Belushi). Winslet wasn’t sure if she could portray the character when she first read the script. She compares the process to steering a car with broken parts: “She’s in a permanent state of falling apart”.

Wonder Wheel, promotional pictures +40 images

After signing on, Winslet spent a summer rehearsing on her own. On the shoot at the famous New York amusement park, Allen interrupted one of her early takes — he shuffled over, looked her in the eye and told her she was “too actressy”. Most stars would have buckled under such harsh directions. “I thought it was hilarious”, Winslet says. “OK, what should I do?” As she recalls, Allen responded: “You know what to do. Don’t do anything. Do it better”.

Did you get a lot of direction from Woody?
He’s a big observer. We could be midway through a take, and he’d be [imitating Allen’s voice] “This is too long. Are you still talking?” As the shoot went on, I would feel confident enough to say to Woody, “Do you know what? I think this scene is over by this line”. And there would sometimes be another half of a page. He’d say, “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s cut it out”. There was one scene with Justin and myself where we fully did take in a lunch break and he chopped the whole thing in half, which was very panic making. I turned into a crazy person. I’m like, “OK, hang on! Nobody talk to me!” I’ve laid out all the seven pages of dialogue on the makeup counter. I’m cutting it out like origami, and I’m taping bits together and just moving things around. And Justin is going, “It’s going to be fine”.

Did you enjoy having an on-screen affair with Justin Timberlake?
Yeah, we had a lot of fun. I would say to him, “It’s such a relief that you’re not what any of us thought you were going to be. Because that would have been such a nightmare”. We shared a trailer. We had a thin partition wall between us. I would hear him peeing in the morning and singing to himself, and I loved it.

Did you watch Woody Allen movies growing up?
I think I watched “Annie Hall” with my dad. I’ll try to say this without crying. [She starts to bawl.] Oh, I can’t. My mother passed away this year. She was very ill at the time we were shooting this film. And she was so proud I was working with Woody Allen. I would call her every day on the way to work. She loved the fact that Justin was so lovely. She thought that was so adorable.

Variety