The Big Read: Why Kate Winslet keeps New Zealand close to her heart

Twenty years later Kate Winslet says she could quote every line and conversation from Heavenly Creatures before it played on screen. Photo / Supplied

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Kate Winslet talks to Joanna Hunkin about her love affair with New Zealand.

"Hello Joanna," a voice says cheerily down the line. "It's Kate Winslet."

Sure, of course it is. It's not that I wasn't expecting this call, but usually there's a bit more prelude involved. A publicist will call you, sometimes more than once, to confirm you're ready for the interview before you're placed on hold - often for upwards of 10 minutes - and the call is finally connected. Sometimes the publicist will stay on the line, coughing surreptitiously when you deviate too far from the approved subject matter - in this case, Winslet's new film, The Dressmaker.

But there's none of that today. Winslet is direct and forthright. She dials her own numbers.

More amusingly, she's calling via Skype, trilling with delight that it's actually worked. She and technology don't always get on (ironic for a woman who is about to star in the new Steve Jobs biopic).

"I'm supposed to be making all these calls to Australia and New Zealand and I thought, 'F***! That's going to cost me a fortune'," she exclaims. So Skype it is.

Direct. Forthright. And a touch frugal.

As she is driving to a photo shoot in central London, the call drops out repeatedly as the car passes in and out of data coverage. Yet Winslet remains determined to forge ahead with her cost-saving strategy. By the end of our interview, she has called me no less than six times.

It is strangely - and rather endearingly - normal. Not what you might expect from a celebrity of Winslet's stature. But then, Winslet doesn't consider herself a celebrity. In fact, she's often surprised that people are interested in her at all.

Kate Winslet in The Dressmaker. Photo / Supplied

She was papped on Auckland's Piha Beach during summer, with photos of her in a black one-piece sent around the world. She wasn't annoyed by the encounter so much as surprised. She had, she says, rather forgotten she was famous.

"It's funny, because I don't really live a film star lifestyle. We try very, very hard to be normal.

"When you're in Piha and I've got the baby on my back, I totally forget. I'm always rather shocked, it's like 'Oh! We're in the paper?'"

It would sound disingenuous coming from just about anyone else, but with Winslet you really do feel it's true.

Or perhaps I've just fallen for her charms as she gushes over my "lovely New Zealand accent" ...

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Kate Winslet in The Dressmaker. Photo / Supplied