Kate Winslet As Elizabeth Taylor for V Magazine
Expect to be doing a double-take at the newsstand this month.
With slicked-back hair, dramatic dark and full brows, a faux beauty mark, retro lined eyes, and a string of pearls dripping down her forehead, it's hard to believe that it's Kate Winslet, not the late Elizabeth Taylor, who has landed on the bewitching black and white cover of V's Heroes Issue.
The St. John campaign star was recruited by Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino to pay homage to their violet-eyed muse (an actress hailing from England herself), who is the subject of a 72-page fashion spread that sees the likes of Stephanie Seymour, Joan Smalls, Lara Stone, and Candice Swanepoel portraying the iconic star.
"There was a real fearlessness in her ... which in Hollywood perhaps didn't feel quite as prevalent," Winslet says of Taylor, who passed away in March.
"Now actors and actresses can bend the rules a lot. Back then, there didn't seem to be a rule book, and there was some expectation in terms of how glamorous a woman should look. There is sort of a coolness and aloofness to the way [she] would look in posed photographs. In candid snapshots she was really quite soft, and she would really screw up her face. I do that as well."
Photo courtesy of V Magazine
It's a wrap! The actress channels the legend with a little help from headscarves.
The cosmetic surgery critic—who sports a series of turbans, printed headscarves, and (of course) massive diamonds in the accompanying fashion spread—also comes clean about Googling herself ("Up popped this whole article: I am sick about Kate Winslet's lies about weight loss and Botox. Please look at my face, please study it. Look! Look!"), and reveals what nude scenes are really like. Brace yourself!
"I hate it," she says. "Listen, make no mistake, I just get on with it. I just go in and say 'Oh f--k, let's do it.' and boom. If you complain about it or procrastinate it's not going to go away. Its a profoundly bizarre thing to do. As actors you talk about it all the time. You can literally be tangled in sheets, and you turn to the other actor and say 'What the f--k are we doing?'"
Photo courtesy of V Magazine
Winslet drips in diamonds, of course, to portray the Hollywood icon in V's Heroes Issue.
For more of Kate Winslet's interview and photo shoot, visit V Magazine online and pick up the Heroes Issue, on sale now.
