Kate Winslet says she hid in the trunk of the car where a 19-year-old actress was filming a love scene so she wasn't alone with 2 male crew members

• Kate Winslet told Julie Miller of Vanity Fair she hid in the trunk of a car to support a younger actress during an intimate scene, as two male camera operators would be there.
• The Oscar-winning actress said that when she was starting out in movies, she never had that kind of support from a veteran actress.
• Winslet also recalled a moment while filming a topless scene during her first movie, "Heavenly Creatures," where one crew member said, "Well, I guess it's hard-d---s day, boys."
• "I don't know a single girl, actually, who hasn't experienced some level of harassment on that level," Winslet said. "Even if they're just words, they're so powerful. It's like bullying."

Kate Winslet has never been shy about filming intimate scenes, but she knows how vulnerable they can make you, so she's trying to give younger actresses doing them the support she never had.

In a wide-ranging interview with Julie Miller of Vanity Fair published Thursday, the Oscar-winning actress opened up about the importance of actresses not just taking control of the sex scenes they are part of, but supporting one another.

She said that in her upcoming HBO limited series, "Mare of Easttown," she took the 19-year-old actress who plays her daughter, Angourie Rice ("The Nice Guys," "Spider-Man: Far from Home") — who's a year younger than her own daughter — under her wing.

During an intimate scene between Rice, who plays a gay character, and another actress, Winslet felt protective. She said that even though she wasn't in the scene, she stuck around on set, as there were going to be only two male camera operators with the actresses.

"It didn't require an intimacy coordinator either because it was just kissing and tenderness in the car," Winslet said. "But sometimes it's very hard when you're young to know how to have a conversation about intimacy in your own room, let alone in the workplace. So I said, 'I will say the things that you can't actually make your mouth say. Just tell me.'"

Winslet said she actually hid in the trunk of the car as the scene was happening.

She said she was "screwed up in a little ball, just so they weren't alone in the car with two men," adding that the camera operators were "completely lovely" and respectful.

"But still, she was young and it was a potential trigger moment for her," Winslet said. "I didn't want for her to feel that way."

Winslet said it triggered a moment she experienced on the set of her first movie, 1994's "Heavenly Creatures," where she didn't have a veteran actress there for support.

In that movie, Winslet and Melanie Lynskey play two teenagers who are attracted to each other and form an intense friendship. Winslet said one instance stands out now, years later, in which she and Lynskey were topless and about to do an intimate scene.

"One of the camera boys — as we're lining up a shot, and we're both in our little undies, naked from the waist up — I heard him as an aside say to someone else, 'Well, I guess it's hard-d---s day, boys,'" Winslet recalled.

"I was like, 'Uh,' but I did this weird thing that you do when you're younger of just going, 'Well, that wasn't very nice, but we'd better not say anything,'" Winslet said. "And so I just carried on. I must have sort of buried it, because I had forgotten. But now it's crystal clear.

"I can actually remember what the guy looked like. I remember his name, and he really was a nice guy, but when you're younger, you do this nonsense thing of just thinking, 'That's what men say.' And they do it sometimes like they're breathing."

She added: "I don't know a single girl, actually, who hasn't experienced some level of harassment on that level. Even if they're just words, they're so powerful. It's like bullying."

Winslet said that because she never had an actress looking over her early in her career, she took it upon herself to provide that support for others.

Winslet recently made headlines when she said she choreographed her sex scene with her costar Saoirse Ronan for the upcoming movie "Ammonite."

"I just think Saoirse and I, we just felt really safe," Winslet told The Hollywood Reporter. She added that the director, Francis Lee, "was naturally very nervous."

"And I just said to him, 'Listen, let us work it out,'" Winslet said. "And we did."

• Read more:
• Kate Winslet, who has worked with both Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, says Hollywood's high regard of the directors is 'f------ disgraceful'
• Kate Winslet says she choreographed sex scenes in 'Ammonite' with costar Saoirse Ronan: 'It's definitely not like eating a sandwich'
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