One of the by-products of the #MeToo movement is the spotlight that has been put on the working conditions that actresses face on film sets, especially when they’re asked to be nude or do love scenes. For decades, women have been incredibly mistreated by many filmmakers when asked to take off their clothes for a film, but as Kate Winslet explained to THR, that was definitely not the case in her new feature, “Ammonite.”
For those that didn’t watch the recent trailer for “Ammonite,” the film stars Kate Winslet as famed paleontologist Mary Anning, as she searches for common fossils to sell. She then meets a young woman, Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan), and the two develop an intimate love affair in a time when that sort of relationship was not celebrated. And in the feature, which is directed by Francis Lee, there is a love scene between the two actresses, which Winslet feels is one of the best, most respectful love scenes she’s ever been a part of.
“Saoirse and I choreographed the scene ourselves,” Winslet said. “It’s definitely not like eating a sandwich. I just think Saoirse and I, we just felt really safe. Francis was naturally very nervous. And I just said to him, ‘Listen, let us work it out.’ And we did. ‘We’ll start here. We’ll do this with the kissing, boobs, you go down there, then you do this, then you climb up here.’ I mean, we marked out the beats of the scene so that we were anchored in something that just supported the narrative. I felt the proudest I’ve ever felt doing a love scene on ‘Ammonite.’ And I felt by far the least self-conscious.”
As mentioned, we have heard many horror stories about film sets over the past several years, with actresses talking about filmmakers not treating them with respect. So, even though “Ammonite” is directed by a man, it would appear that Lee went out of his way, at the direction of Winslet, to make sure his two leading ladies were completely comfortable doing a scene that could have gone wrong in a number of ways.
“Ammonite” is set to play some of the fall film festivals and will be released in select theaters on November 13.