It's okay. My long-suffering wife of 17 years has known about her from the start.
In fact, she even made me t-shirt commemorating Winslet's first marriage and we had the music from her 1996 film Jude playing at our wedding.
While I'll admit to brief infatuations with the likes of Winona Ryder, Meg Ryan, Clare Danes, Natalie Portman, Renee Zellweger, Sandra Bullock and Amy Adams, alongside a long-standing admiration for Jodie Foster (I've always thought Julia Roberts too horsey and Angelina too scary), no-one has ever held a candle to Winslet in my more than 20 years of avid film consumption and written and aural witterings
But to almost incomprehensibly mangle Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "Why do I rate she? Let me count the ways."
The Kiwi Connection
Like most cinemagoers, I first encountered the English rose in Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. Her charismatic and chilling performance as Juliet Hulme marked her out as a talent to watch.
But not many people know she returned to the South Island soon after to film scenes for Jude.
As a cub reporter in 1997, one of my first features (self-ascribed of course) was investigating the Taieri- based shoot, just in time for the film's release on video. I didn't score an interview with Winslet, but I did catch up with her local stand-in, and see her photos of the 167cm beauty.
Natural Beauty
Of course, one of the most refreshing things about Winslet is how normal, body-size-wise anyway, she looks. Both Halle Berry and Oprah Winfrey have famously commented on her natural assets and like Helen Mirren, she has not been afraid of showing them off onscreen – 10 of her first 21 live-action roles have included nude scenes, which, of course, have made her a big hit on the internet, and at the, then ubiquitous DVD store.
Versatility
Kate Elizabeth Winslet's first acting job was dancing with the Honey Monster in a commercial for Sugar Puffs cereal at age 11
From there, she did a stint in television and has since essayed roles from a cartoon rat to Shakespeare's Ophelia and the Marquis De Sade's muse on the big screen.
Less well-known is her singing prowess, which not only featured on the Heavenly Creatures soundtrack and in Romance and Cigarettes, but also manifested itself in a 2006 duet with Weird Al Yankovic (I Need a Nap) and the Top 10 UK hit (No. 1 in Ireland) What If?, from 2001 animated flick Christmas Carol: The Movie.
The Common Touch
Unlike other movie stars, Winslet comes across in interviews as approachable, down-to-earth and sensible. Then there is her wicked sense of humour. One of her best performances was playing a version of herself on Ricky Gervais' TV series Extras. It's now famous as the show where the – eerily prescient – idea of her playing a character in a Holocaust drama was the only way she would win an Oscar (she won in 2009 for The Reader). It was also famous for her dirty talk.
What other Hollywood actress would be caught dead delivering lines like: "I'd love it if you'd stuff your Willy Wonka between my Oompa Loompas," and with such glee.
In New Zealand, Prime TV even came up with a poster of her dressed as a nun with a tagline that caught the attention of many commuters, but also the Advertising Standards Authority. Unfortunately I don't have one of those, but I do have many posters and DVDs and once had a 1998 calendar which I used ever year until it went down with The Press building in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
Over the years, I've interviewed co-stars and directors hoping one day I might finally have my 15-minutes with Kate. Thanks to the team at Paramount Pictures NZ and their film The Dressmaker, in the winter of 2015, I finally did.
Normally, there's a labyrinthine, Kafkaesque array of publicists and promoters guarding and controlling access but not on this occasion. I nearly had a heart attack when my phone rang and this voice said words I shall never forget: "F…, James its Kate Winslet here, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to call you back because I've forgotten to tell my husband to put the kids lunches in their bags."
When she ran back a minute later full of apologies I was in heaven. Our conversation was everything I'd dreamed of. She was witty, erudite and open, as we discussed my daughter's ballet recital, Winslet's love of travel magazines, Christchurch pre and post-earthquake and, just occasionally, the film we were supposed to be talking about.
