Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey
on each other, themselves and
Heavenly Creatures

(extracts from an article from the American PREMIERE magazine, November 1999 issue)

If you were cast as Kate Winslet in the movie of her life, this would be your character's backstory :

(...)

At 16, Winslet hung up her school uniform and set out to be a great pretender. Within a year she held in her hands the catalyst - a film synopsis of Heavenly Creatures, based on the true story of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, who, in 1954 New Zealand, became fantastically attached to each other and bludgeoned Pauline's mother to death. "I was reading it on the way home in the car. It was almost as though..."

CUT BACK TO : WINSLET lying on ROOFTOP, her point of view, FIREWORKS exploding in sky

WINSLET (VOICE-OVER) It was unbelievable ! It was like, holy shit ! And I said to my dad...

CUT TO : INT. CAR - RAINY AFTERNOON, a TEENAGE KATE sitting in passenger seat, FATHER driving.

TEENAGE KATE (reading pages) God, Dad, this treatment sounds amazing. Do you think I'll get it ?

FATHER You'll get it.

CLOSE-UP of rain-streaked window, with TEENAGE KATE's smiling reflection.

TEENAGE KATE Yes. I will.

PAN across rainy window, which becomes a different rainy window, of a casting studio. Through the glass we see DIRECTOR PETER JACKSON and some others sitting in chairs, riveted by TEENAGE KATE, whose lips we see moving.

WINSLET (V.O.) I was just really honest...

The window opens magically, and the camera moves in.

TEENAGE KATE (hands on hips) Look, you have to fucking cast me in this role because you aren't going to ever find the right person. I can play this role; I know I can play this role.

Winslet laughs. "I had to get that across. I had to let them know that they would be doing themselves a lot of favors if they cast me." She laughs harder still : "I mean, She Who Had No Experience at the Time. Nothing much, anyway. So they cast me, and off I go to New Zealand for four month, on my own at 17." Her costar, Melanie Lynskey, was 15 and had never acted before. The girls first met at the airport. "I was picking my luggage up," Lynskey says, "and I turned around and there she was. She looked like this vision. I said, 'Oh my God, you look like a movie star !' I was so in awe of her. And she had head shots ! I'd never seen such a thing. She had these black-and-white photos with her hair blown back. And I said, 'What do you with them ?' And she said, 'Send them to fans.' "

Heavenly Creatures was shot in exactly the same places that Juliet and Pauline had lived their lives, gone to school, explored their friendship, and committed the crime. "So creepy," Lynskey says. "I remember the last shot we filmed. It was the first scene in the movie; we run up the hill screaming, and we're covered in blood. At the final take, we looked at each other, drenched in this blood, and we literally didn't know what to do." The two girls just stood there, while the movie world around them literally started coming down. "We were both crying, and we went and had a shower in the actual shower where the girls washed the blood off," Lynskey says. "It was such a strange day."

"The movie was an incredible experience," Winslet says, looking back. "I just loved it. But it was also really traumatizing - true story, lots of harrowing scenes."

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