The other great Kate

On the cover of the current issue of Premiere magazine Cate Blanchett poses quite sexily right next to big block letters that read: Cate the Great. You won’t find me disputing that sentiment at all. However, there is another Great Kate with a capital K that must be celebrated this autumn — the traditional time of year that we cinemaphiles can return en masse to theatres now that the major studio’s summertime trash has been banished to cable and DVD — Ms. Kate Winslet.

Yes, Kate Winslet, she of “Titanic” fame who at the ripe old age of 21 turned her back on the easy money and commercial glory that was her right as the female star of the biggest grossing film of all-time. And she did it without having the massive freak out that her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio did. Remember how poor Leo just couldn’t bring himself to that year’s Oscars ceremony since he didn’t get nominated for his role in “Titanic”?

Winslet did get nominated — one of her four; the most for any actor age 30 or younger.

She could have followed up “Titanic” with “Shakespeare in Love,” which she was offered (the role landed Gwyneth Paltrow an Oscar) but instead she said yes to the little seen and now largely forgotten “Hideous Kinky,” a drama about an English woman who moves to Morocco with her two small children.

Was it the wise choice? Maybe not. After all “Shakespeare in Love” was a great film that snatched that year’s best-picture Oscar and would have propelled Winslet even higher into the stratosphere of commercial success and uber-stardom (think Julia Roberts).

But it was a brave choice — and bravery is a quality not usually associated with Hollywood. Winslet also acknowledges that it was the right choice at the time. “I knew doing [“Hideous Kinky”] was going to save my soul for that period of time,” she recently told Entertainment Weekly. See that, an actress with a soul!

Of artists and Oscars
If her film choices are any judge it’s apparent Winslet has no interest in becoming Julia Roberts or any other actress who is more of a brand than a performer. Her reputation as an actress has been defined by the eclectic and largely non-commercial choices she’s made. Her best films —“Heavenly Creatures,” “Quills,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” — are smaller, artier fare that has earned her critical raves and those four Oscar nods. She’s never won; an error that the fine minds of the Academy of  Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will one day correct.

Yes, Kate Winslet is an “artist” — go on, say it! — that dirty filthy word  that has become so besmirched in this cynical, ironic, digital age in which we live; though, luckily, she is one who doesn’t take herself so seriously. Which is why she quite brilliantly satirized herself in that classic episode of “Extras” where she plays herself playing a nun in a Holocaust drama so she can finally win an Oscar — not to mention that she mimed having phone sex while fondling her own breast and wearing a nun’s habit!

She is also not above doing an American Express commercial. Note to cynics: So what if she did? Like YOU leave home without your Amex card? Puh-leez! At least she isn’t one of those hypocritical A-listers who hawk everything from alcohol to watches in Europe and Japan but forbid the commercials from being shown in the U.S.

MORE FROM MOVIES

Movies Section Front

‘Avatar’ blasts off with $232 million worldwide Streep and Baldwin — not a ‘Complicated’ pair Downey brings action to ‘Sherlock Holmes’ ‘Nine’ women latest to bewitch and bewilder You’ll wish you didn’t ‘Hear About the Morgans’ Sarah Jessica Parker can’t wait for Christmas Jeff Bridges is Bad to the bone in ‘Crazy Heart’ Cameron aims for ‘Titanic’ results with ‘Avatar’ Clooney, Streep, Bullock earn SAG Award nods This was not the decision Lucas was looking for Movies Section Front   Add Movies headlines to your news reader: