'This is how I am now': Kate Winslet was 'excited' to film nude scenes at 44

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Kate Winslet has received early awards season buzz for her latest role in the period drama “Ammonite.”

The 44-year-old stars as Mary Anning, a real-life fossil hunter opposite Saoirse Ronan, who portrays geologist, Charlotte Murchison. The film, directed by Francis Lee, chronicles both the same-sex romance between Anning and the married Murchison as well as the journey of both women working as pioneers in a male-dominated industry.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Winslet revealed Lee allowed both she and Ronan to choreograph the intimate love scenes themselves.

“I just think Saoirse and I, we just felt really safe. Francis was naturally very nervous. And I just said to him, ‘Listen, let us work it out.’ And we did. ‘We’ll start here. We’ll do this with the kissing, boobs, you go down there, then you do this, then you climb up here.’ I mean, we marked out the beats of the scene so that we were anchored in something that just supported the narrative,” she explained. “I felt the proudest I’ve ever felt doing a love scene on ‘Ammonite.’ And I felt by far the least self-conscious.”

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Despite the age difference between Winslet and Ronan, the Oscar-winner said she found filming nude scenes with the 26-year-old empowering.

“I’m nearly 45, and Saoirse is almost half my age. And to have an opportunity to be my real 40-something self, post-children, you know? Women aren’t really having the courage to do that,” Winslet said. “I was just excited to say, ‘This is what it is, peeps. This is how I am now, and it’s very much not the body I had 20 years ago.”

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The mother-of-three revealed she consciously tried to keep weight on for the role in an effort to capture the “heftiness” of her character.

“There is a grit to her, there’s a weight to her. I changed up my exercise a little bit. I made sure that I didn’t lose weight — which I do a lot, actually, on films,” she said. “I hate to talk about weight, but I only say it in the context of, it was a conscious effort on my part to really make sure that I didn’t shrink or change myself for the sake of being naked. I did the opposite.”

Although many people have commented on the film’s same-sex relationship, Winslet believes “Ammonite” shares a far greater story.

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“It’s a story about women speaking up, speaking out,” Winslet told the magazine. “I think uncovering stories where women were repressed in such a systemic way is highlighting how history has covered up those successes. We’re not going to do that anymore, world.”

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