Kate Winslet reveals stomach-churning Hollywood secret

The Oscar-winning star shared a truly gross behind-the-scenes detail from her most recent film.

Kate Winslet has lifted the lid on a major Hollywood movie secret – and it quite literally stinks.

The Oscar-winning actress, 48, appeared on Virgin Radio UK’s breakfast show with Chris Evans on Thursday to discuss her new film, Lee, reports The Sun.

In it, her real life character – war photographer Lee Miller – spends a lot of time smoking cigarettes.

While there was a way around shooting the habit so it didn’t compromise Kate’s health – there was another rather nasty side effect.

Kate said: “They were herbal. They’re very strange things. They all smoked. I mean that was it, they were all smoking in that time.”

When Chris asked if the phrase ‘smoking take’ was used on set, she responded: “Yeah, ‘Light ‘em up’. That’s what they would say.

“If you got ‘em smoke ‘em and everyone has fake herbal [cigarettes].

“Herbal cigarettes actually don’t smell very nice. They sort of smell a little bit like burning poo, to be honest. So it’s a rather odd smell. But the smoke lingers in the air.”

Winslet shared the gross detail during press for her new film, Lee. Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for BFI

In Lee, director Ellen Kuras tells the story of model turned photographer Miller’s time in Europe during the World War II.

The aftermath took a heavy toll on Miller, who suffered from PTSD and turned to alcohol to numb the mental pain of what she witnessed.

During her time on the frontline, she famously posed in Adolf Hitler’s bath tub.

In the 1950s she was even investigated by MI5, who thought she might have been a Soviet spy, though it wasn’t fruitful.

At the premiere of Lee in London earlier this month. Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

Chris and Kate also discussed the actress’s glittering trophy cabinet, which has one notable omission: a Tony award.

If she was to get one for acting in a Broadway stage play she would join an exclusive club of 21 actors who have won an Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar and Tony [EGOT].

She told Chris: “You are as passionate about that, it sounds, or [as] determined as, one of my children who figured out years ago, ‘Mum, this is not right, there’s one missing here’.

“So as I understand it, you have to be in a play on Broadway, which I have yet to do, and I haven’t actually done any theatre since I was 19.

“I had a child when I was 25. I became a parent very young. Doing theatre is pretty anti-social in terms of hands-on parenting because you have shows on a Monday, you know, the three shows at the weekend.

“So it just wasn’t a possibility. And then, you know, life went on and I had two more children and I’m just yet to kind of figure it out. But I will at some stage … I’d really, really like to.”

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Kate Winslet reveals stomach-churning Hollywood secret