"This is going to sound really weird, but I never had a desire to be famous," the sublime actress tells the December issue of Vanity Fair, which features her on the cover in her most sultry, skin-teasing Catherine Deneuve-inspired pose (check out more shots from the spread here). "I never had huge ambitions -- never. ... I was fat. I didn't know any fat famous actresses."
Winslet, 33, who in her teens once tipped the scales at close to 200 pounds, concedes that she "just did not see myself in that world at all, and I'm being very sincere. You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. Because you always think that you just look a little bit wrong or a little bit different from everyone else. And I still sort of have that."
It's a feeling that apparently tends to bubble up when she sees stylish types teetering on stilettos.
"I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city and I think, 'I should make more of an effort. I should look like that,'" figures Kate, before common sense takes over. "But then I think, 'They can't be happy in those heels.'"
The actress, who is married to director Sam Mendes and is mom to Mia, 8, and Joe, 5, approaches the maintenance of her enviable figure with the same pragmatic attitude.
"Everyone can commit to 20 minutes," she says of her workout regimen, "especially if there's a glass of Chardonnay afterwards."
It's a tip Winslet would probably share with the other parents at her kids' school, if she could overcome the feeling that they're sizing her up instead of trusting Us Weekly's tagline that stars really are "just like us."
"You know why I fear people's judgment? Because I know they're judging. I know they are," she observes. "You know, these mothers are going to read this article and they're all absolutely great, but I know when I walk into that classroom in the morning, even if it's for a split second, at some point I'm being checked out. And some of them will even say to me, 'OK, what's the secret with the skin?' At which point I'm like, 'Oh my God, there's no secret. I have makeup on. And by the way, since I turned 30, I've had an acne problem on my chin. I'm just like everybody else -- I just know how to cover it. If you'd like me to show you how, I'd be more than happy.'"
Still, one judgment she's sure to welcome is from her "king of the world"-spouting "Titanic" leading man Leonardo DiCaprio, with whom she's reteamed for the Mendes-directed "Revolutionary Road."
The actor, who's apparently over that whole "you sent me to a watery grave even though I'm pretty sure there was room on that wooden board you were floating on" thing, declares Winslet "the most talented actress of her generation."
And with Oscar buzz building for her "Revolutionary" role, not to mention her turn opposite Ralph Fiennes in the post-World War II drama "The Reader," Winslet is up front about her desire to claim a little bald naked gold guy of her very own.
"Do I want it? You bet your [bleeping] ass I do!" she enthusiastically acknowledges. "I think that people assume that I don't care or don't want it or don't need it or something. It's hard to be there five times, and I'm only human, you know? But I don't go home and cry, because we're all grown-ups here."
Funnily enough, one Academy Award winner who did her crying onstage as she collected her statue has revealed a desire to be more like Kate.
"[She's] always naked, sitting on a toilet, running buck-naked. She's free," Halle Berry gushes to Elle. "I want to be the kind of actress who can really be comfortable with my body like that."
But that on-camera comfort doesn't come easy.
"I know that in order to do my job as truthfully as I can -- because to me that's everything -- you really have to not give a [bleep] [about what people think]," explains Winslet. "You have to be prepared to look stupid and you have to be prepared to walk around naked in front of a crew of people you've never met before and may never see again. And it is scary."
And that may be why her personal wants tend to be refreshingly simple.
"I need to be looked after," Kate tells the magazine. "I'm not talking about diamond rings and nice restaurants and fancy stuff --- in fact, that makes me uncomfortable. I didn't grow up with it and it's not me, you know?"
What she does need is "someone to say to me, 'Shall I run you a bath?' or 'Let's go to the pub, just us.' I mean, the things that make me happiest in the whole world are going on the occasional picnic, either with my children or with my partner," she notes. "Big family gatherings, and being able to go to the grocery store -- if I can get those things in, I'm doing good."
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