Ill-Informed Gadfly

My buddy James and I like to joke about how while most actresses have no-nudity clauses in their contracts, Kate Winslet has a nudity clause. She is required to appear naked. (Ewan McGregor has one too.) If you don’t believe me, rent “Hamlet,” “Titanic,” “Hideous Kinky,” “Holy Smoke,” “Quills” or “Iris.” And has anyone seen “Jude”? I haven’t, but I wouldn’t rule anything out.

Anyway, I read something a while back (perhaps when the movie was supposed to be released last December) in which Winslet, now a mother of two, pledged that “All the King’s Men” would contain her final nude scene. Of course, it doesn’t really count because it’s so demure. You don’t really see anything, as if that matters in Winslet’s case. David Mamet jokes about this phenomenon in his movie “State and Main.” The star of the movie within the movie (Sarah Jessica Parker) doesn’t want to appear topless. The problem is solved when the filmmakers realize she doesn’t need to: “You could draw them from memory!”

I say all this not to mock Winslet. She’s a phenomenal actor, and when she bares all it’s never gratuitous. It’s just liberated and honest. Hell, she even projects a healthy body image: In none of these scenes does she look emaciated. As Joan Rivers joked before the “Titanic” Oscars: “Leonardo DiCaprio weighs less than Kate Winslet’s arm.” That’s cruel, sure, but I think Rivers was poking more fun at Hollywood’s absurd standards of beauty than at Winslet. She’s always looked gorgeous, and I don’t think Rivers would dispute that.

And because Winslet looks like a woman you might actually encounter somewhere on Earth, she’s able to project a matter-of-fact sensuality. I just hope that element doesn’t melt away as she enters the next phase of her career. Certainly “All the King’s Men” was a misstep. If you want to make Winslet look plain, cast her as an idealized Southern belle and bathe her in gauzy light. It doesn’t flatter her. Unadorned, she’s beautiful; dolled-up, she looks like she’s trying too hard. Plus, her accent and characterization are flaccid. I blame the director, Steven Zaillian, more than I blame Winslet, but I hope she doesn’t continue to choose misguided prestige projects like this now that her wild days are over. I would lump “Finding Neverland” in that category too: Who wants to watch an adventurous actor like Winslet coughing up blood into a hankie because she’s dying of the consumption?

There’s more Kate to come this year. She plays a suburban temptress in “Little Children,” although the sex is likely to be tasteful, with Todd Field (”In the Bedroom”) behind the camera. If the movie clicks (and early buzz is positive) she’s likely to score her fifth Oscar nomination — at age 31! She deserved every single one of them, perhaps no more so than for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” considering how sketchily written her character was. Only Winslet could make Clementine Kruczynski indelible.

She’ll also appear this December in “The Holiday,” the latest frothy (and inevitably clumsy and endless) romantic comedy from Nancy Meyers (”Something’s Gotta Give”). She plays an English country lass who switches houses with L.A. glitzer Cameron Diaz. And she gets to fall in love with Jack Black, which I really look forward to. He can be a camera hog, sure, but he’s also a generous and empathetic actor — he’ll bask in her radiance. In a way, I’m looking forward to “The Holiday” more than “Little Children” because it will allow Winslet to be loose and relaxed. She’s an effortless, instinctual performer, and she doesn’t need potted-up melodrama or period cliches to display her gifts. Just let her behave and react, you know, like people do, and she’ll be wondrous.