Kate has a mother's pride in film
October 29, 2004

Alison Jones

Kate Winslet is a woman who appreciates a second chance.

Back when she a chubby 15-year-old schoolgirl actress who never got the pretty parts, she was enormously flattered to be offered the role of Wendy in a production of Peter Pan.

However, her excitement was superseded by worries about the scenes when she would be required to fly.

'I was very concerned that whoever was working the pully system wouldn't be able to lift me. I remember being very nervous about how it was going to work. I think it was probably not a very good production and that you could see the wires quite badly.'

When she got the opportunity to play the woman whose family inspired the story of the Lost Boys in Finding Neverland she admitted she was thrilled.

'I always loved the story, I grew up on it. For the first time it gives us some kind of an insight into who JM Barrie was and what it was that motivated him.

'I'm tremendously proud of the film. I think it is loving and affectionate, which is a take on Barrie and his life I don't think we've seen before. In fact quite the opposite, we're often led to believe there was a more sinister side to him.'

There is a discreet reference to the rumours that swirled round Edwardian society, prompted by the writer's close friendship with the Llewelyn Davies family, specifically the warm natured Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her young sons.

In the film Barrie (who is played by Johnny Depp) befriends them following the death of Sylvia's husband, Arthur, from cancer.

In real life he became a playmate to the boys a frequent visitor to the family home and holiday companion for several years while Arthur was still alive and the two became close friends.

Apart from the gossip this unusual arrangement prompted - a grown man playing pirates and Indians with young boys who were not his own, even going so far as to pay for their education - it also cost Barrie his own marriage to his neglected wife Mary.

In fact it is more likely that Barrie's own emotional growth had been curtailed when he was just six following the accidental death of his adored older brother and his affection for the Llewelyn Davies boys was prompted by a desire to recapture that lostsense of innocence. There is some evidence that the author might have harboured romantic intentions towards Sylvia after she was widowed but, tragically, she too was struck down by cancer before he could act on it.

The grieving Barrie then became the unofficial guardian to the orphaned boys.

'I really love the fact the film touches of his affection for young children and for experimenting in fun and adventure,' says Kate.

'My daughter Mia, who is four is completely fixated with being a child who can fly. I think there's something wonderful about that and I hope that it's a story that does live on for a long, long time to come, because it is so incredibly pure.'

She also feels the film shows the power of imagination, a faculty in children that is becoming sadly underused as they are distracted by computer games and television.

'Imagination to me is everything, that's why I do what I do as a living. Certainly with my children we have lots of stories and lots of play acting, lots of talk about fairies in the woods. We're big believers of fairies who live under the bed in ourhouse.'

Although there wasn't a great deal of material about Sylvia for Kate to research, she was able to get a sense of her from information about her famous family, the du Mauriers (Daphne was a relative of Sylvia's).

'The one thing I did find was an account in a book on Barrie which said that at dinner parties she always insisted that her children were there as well and that there would be one or two sitting on her lap at a time.

'Back then this was a pretty outrageous thing because children were supposed to be seen and not heard.

'I really loved that because it reminded me of my own mother. I am one of four children, and she did everything with us. I remember all of us being bundled onto buses and going on day trips, and tearing around in fields and adventuring in the same waythat the Llewelyn Davies boys do.

'And I've always got my children hanging off me in some form or other.

'Sylvia was a hands on mother who was prepared to rebel against decorum in society and just be herself.'

Kate had played mothers before but in this case she felt she could relate on a personal level because she had, by that time, become a mum herself.

'My daughter hadn't turned two when we started making the film. My son (Joe, by her second husband Sam Mendes) will be nearly one by the time of its release. It is odd for me watching it because I noticed that the instincts I had as an actor, with theboys, do in fact mirror my own instincts physically with my own son, though I didn't have him at the time.

' I was constantly moving their hair out of their eyes or straightening up their clothes. I like that because it is similar to me.

'I don't think I could have played Sylvia if I wasn't a parent just because there is a physicality I believe that comes with being a parent that isn't in your muscle memory in any way before you have children.'

Though she has only just turned 29, Kate is not even vaguely worried about being seen as a maternal figure, though there are actresses nearing their 40s who fight against anything that would suggest they were past the first bloom of youth.

'When I did Jude I was a mother and I was only 20 then.

'Maybe it is something to do with being British as well, I don't feel that Hollywood pressure to stay young or not start playing mothers because therefore you are only going to be cast as a mother or a married person.'

Fortunately she has a few weapons up her sleeve to stop her being thought of as too mumsy - such as being seen looking devastating in a clinging blue dress at the film's UK premiere.

There are hopes that Johnny Depp's sympathetic performance as the man who was a child at heart might garner some awards.

But his thunder is very much stolen by Freddie Highmore as Peter Llewelyn Davies, whose grief for the loss of his father stands out as vividly as a bruise.

'He is a remarkable child and an extraordinary actor,' enthuses Kate. 'I would be really surprised if that boy, who was ten when we made it, doesn't get some kind of nomination for an award some time soon.'

It was fortunate that Kate derives such pleasure from being surrounded by children, as she discovered that her co-star was the biggest kid of all.

'There was one brilliant thing that Johnny did that made a scene that was quite difficult work. They all go to dinner at the Barrie's house, and the scene is all about unspoken tension and all about how amusing the environment is to the boys inparticular. We knew that there were going to have to be some spontaneous bursts of laughter coming from the boys.

'So Johnny brought a fart machine to work. It's operated by remote control and throughout the scene he would press the button and there'd be this noise.

'The boys had no idea that this was going to happen, I really thought that one of them was going to wet himself, he was laughing so much. They just thought that someone was farting, and in fact they thought it was Julie Christie (who was playing Sylvia'sformidable mother) 'Then I said it wasn't Julie, and I said it was me, and that made them laugh even more.'

Source: Birmingham Post