Kate Winslet: Acting helps me cope

Kate Winslet is glad acting opens her up to "extreme situations".

The actress had her big break when she starred alongside Leonard DiCaprio in the romantic 1997 classic Titanic.

Since then she's continued to enjoy immense success, with her latest role in Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos. In the drama, the 39-year-old's character falls into the water. It was freezing but nothing the hardened Hollywood actress couldn't handle.

"You know, I've done Titanic. It was a bit like taking a cold bath in comparison," she laughed to Britain's OK! magazine.

"That's one of the wonderful things about being an actress - you find yourself in these very extreme situations and you go into coping mode. You know it's going to be OK, you're not going to get hurt because there's a bunch of people there making sure that you won't, and it's really fun."

Back in 1995, Kate worked with Alan in Sense and Sensibility. At that time he was on screen as an actor, but for A Little Chaos he also takes the reins as director.

"It was wonderful," she gushed.

"We all benefitted from his understanding of actors and how we're all a bit funky sometimes and we can whinge and whine a bit.

"Alan is such a gentleman but when I first met him, I was absolutely terrified. I was 19 and he's got that voice. I remember thinking, 'I'm going to die, he thinks I'm rubbish, why am I here'"

Kate also appears in the Steve Jobs biography, which is due out later this year.