Sitting on the stool of a Manhattan diner during the lunch rush, swinging her legs, her upper body collapsing into a heap on the counter when she has a laugh at herself, Kate Winslet fits right in with the regulars. She is, of course, a great beauty, but almost more so because she isn't a moving statue of poreless, curveless perfection. Her hair is falling haphazardly out of its ponytail and she's in Birkenstock sandals and a shapeless knee-length gypsy skirt ''that, frankly, my mother would have worn,'' she says with good-humored disinterest. And yet everyone in the restaurant, the hipsters and the suits, the cops and the construction workers, looks positively besotted.
In 1997, Winslet navigated the sudden onslaught of fame after Titanic with a grace and coolness sorely lacking in today's young Hollywood. As the now-31-year-old beaming mother of two children (Mia, 5, and Joe, 2) and wife of American Beauty director Sam Mendes, she never wasted any time fighting over B actors or dodging drug or dehydration or anorexia rumors in the tabloids. Winslet credits a large part of her professional composure to her close friend Emma Thompson, whom she met during 1995's Sense and Sensibility. ''She set an incredible example for me when I was very young,'' says Winslet. Thompson imparted two crucial notes of caution. '''As much as you might be tempted, you need to remember that it's very important not to work sometimes,''' remembers Winslet. ''And she also told me, 'If you ever lose weight, I will never f---ing talk to you again.'''
But perhaps what's most endearing about Kate Winslet is not her earthy looks or her easy laugh. It's simply, refreshingly, her talent. She's already racked up a staggering four Academy Award nominations (for Sense and Sensibility, Titanic, Iris, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). And yet if you exclude Titanic's record-breaking receipts, she has never starred in a major box office hit. Unlike the many stars who rely on their smile or their body or their winning effervescence, she's built a steady career of nuanced performances in small gems of movies. In the coming months, her impressive range, and Hollywood's inability to typecast her, is on full display as she floats from a supporting role in Steven Zaillian's political drama All the King's Men to the lead in Todd Field's intimate study of suburban angst Little Children and then to what will be, remarkably, her first romantic comedy ever, Nancy Meyers' December film The Holiday.
''People do love her,'' says Meyers, whose last movie was the rousing hit Something's Gotta Give. ''The only other person I've ever seen love acting that much is Jack Nicholson.''
Winslet was just 21 years old when Titanic's $1.8 billion global take transformed her into a superstar. ''I remember having this overwhelming feeling of, Oh, my God, if I'm ever going to have to hang on to the seat of my pants, it's now,'' she says. ''Not in terms of losing my mind, but sticking to my guns and hanging on to what was most important to me in terms of work, regardless of the size of budgets and regardless of what a role could do for me in the long run.'' So she turned down high-profile parts in Shakespeare in Love (for which Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar) and Anna and the King (for which Jodie Foster did not), and instead went off to Morocco to play a hippie mother of two small kids in the tiny road picture Hideous Kinky. ''I knew doing that film was going to save my soul for that period of time,'' she says. ''And it came and went and that was just fine.''
''So I love to sit back and see young actresses work their way up the ladder,'' she continues, ''and not only give great performances but also hang on to themselves.'' She's giddy about the talents of Michelle Williams (''I could watch her until the cows come home!''), Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Maria Full of Grace's Catalina Sandino Moreno. At the 2005 Oscars, both Winslet and newcomer Moreno were nominated for Best Actress. ''I could have just wept for joy for her,'' she says. ''I didn't know her, but she and I were on the red carpet and she would lean over and say, 'Do I look okay?' And I'd say, 'You look ab-so-lute-ly fantastic!' To be suddenly so on show like that is a really strange thing.''
Since her own red-carpet debut, Winslet has purposefully steered clear of Hollywood's stock roles for actresses — the girlfriend or the girl fending off a killer. In Little Children, she plays an adulterous mother who, according to director Todd Field, handles her child ''like a piece of luggage she's dragging through the airport.'' Field, who fell hard for Winslet's work (''so alive and mad and engaging'') in Eternal Sunshine, praises his star's desire to embrace such an everyday, flawed character. ''As actors,'' says Field, who himself starred in movies like Eyes Wide Shut before making his directorial debut with the Oscar-nominated In the Bedroom, ''we get rewarded for doing things that are our stock in trade: playing someone with a handicap or changing your gender or playing someone like Roosevelt. But what Kate's done with this woman is make tiny, tiny brushstrokes that run the emotional gamut.''
Signing up to play a cheating spouse was, strangely, an easier decision for Winslet than accepting Meyers' offer to costar with Cameron Diaz in The Holiday. ''There's a certain amount of potential for exposure as a human being that goes hand in hand with being involved in a bigger studio picture like that,'' she explains. ''And so I just had to take a deep breath and say, Well, first of all, do I want to play this part? The answer was immediately yes. I might not have to fall apart weeping and drowning and dying by the end of the movie, but I actually love a good popcorn film. I love Maid in Manhattan! I love Something's Gotta Give! But then I did have to think of the other side of it, the fact that I hadn't done something that commercial since Titanic. I took a deep breath and decided it was time.''
As Meyers began previewing The Holiday for test audiences, she was cheered by the warm response to Winslet. ''For young women to look at her as opposed to the girls in Us Weekly is terrific. Everything about her just screams smart. I think she'll keep going and going, giving great performances at every age.''
Winslet isn't one to join in the chorus of complaints about the lack of layered roles for women in Hollywood. [See Hollywood vs. Women] ''I don't have the right to criticize the way a woman is portrayed in film, purely because I've had the opportunity to play so many great parts,'' she says. (What really incenses her is when she reads a mediocre script that has studio backing. ''I cannot understand how on earth this got funding when you could make three decent British films with this money!'') And when she feels queasy about her own shelf life, the generation of women above her provides sustenance. ''I look to people like Meryl Streep and Judi Dench and Helen Mirren and just think, As far as I can tell, none of you have had any surgery,'' says Winslet. ''You all look amazing. And you're all working and being better than ever!''
At last month's Toronto film festival, Winslet, who was promoting Little Children, reunited with Emma Thompson, who was plugging the comedy Stranger Than Fiction. In between junkets, the two old friends met in Winslet's hotel room for lunch and a quick gab. ''She turned up and went, 'I'm not going to stay for long, but I want to make sure you eat!''' remembers Winslet. ''She said, 'I ordered sushi, salad, and a pudding of some kind. Did you order the pudding?' And I said 'No, no, I didn't.' And she said, 'Why didn't you order the pudding?! It looks delicious!'''
After the premiere of Little Children, another gust of Oscar talk started to swirl around Winslet's performance. There's something refreshing about a famous actress who doesn't natter on insincerely about her dumb luck. Winslet fondly remembers the 1997 Academy Awards when Frances McDormand accepted the Oscar for Fargo. ''She just strutted up there,'' she says. ''It was almost like a performer going up there to take the podium. 'It's my turn!' She didn't make any apologies.'' Winslet likewise isn't the type to feel apologetic for her achievements. ''I work really, really hard, so I feel incredibly proud of my nominations. And I feel very proud of the fact that I'm [one of] the youngest who's ever gotten that many. That's amazing! I'll be able to tell my grandkids that when I was that age, that happened to me. Wow! Yes, Kate, well done.'