Mafia mobster Kate in a titanic change of role
SHE has been Hollywood’s favourite romantic lead ever since she captured our hearts as Rose in Titanic.
But now Kate Winslet is about to shock audiences with a dramatic change of image – starring as a sadistic mafia gang boss.
Winslet, 40, who is well known for her roles in historical dramas such as Jude, Hamlet and Sense And Sensibility, is utterly transformed for the forthcoming violent thriller Triple 9.
Playing Russian-Israeli mafia boss Irene, the six-times Oscar nominee bears a striking resemblance in one scene to the character Sharon Stone played in Basic Instinct, with her dirty blonde hair brushed back and holding a cigarette in a sultry pose.
In the film, her gang plan to kill a policeman so that officers – whose jargon for the death of one of their own is a ‘triple nine’ – will be distracted while the criminals try to pull off a daring heist.
The trailer for the film does not pull its punches and includes a scene where Winslet’s vicious character is seen terrorising a group of prisoners who are gagged and bound in the boot of a car. She brandishes what appears to be a bag of finger nails.
But her character’s horrifying antics don’t seem to have had any impact on her sex symbol status. Fans who have seen the trailer have posted a series of tweets describing her as ‘hot’, ‘smoking hot’ and ‘hot and evil’. Another said the star had been transformed from ‘English Rose to Russian Vixen’.
Winslet, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as a Nazi concentration camp guard in The Reader, has had plenty of modern parts and is currently starring in Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs biopic.
But the mother of three has never embraced the world of the crime thriller before. Her co-stars in the new film include 12 Years A Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Triple 9 is due for release in February next year.