NEW YORK ― Kate Winslet rolls up her black shirt and points to her belly, which has that muffin top familiar to most moms.

“Look, I still have the skin, you see. I do. Who gives a (flip)? That’s hard won. I love all those things,” says the mom of Mia, 14; Joe, 11; and Bear, 18 months old. “Everything is really pronounced when you’re pregnant.”

In fact, Winslet was expecting son Bear, from her third marriage to businessman Ned Rocknroll, when she shot her latest film, the period drama “A Little Chaos” (in theaters Friday). 

“I quite loved the fact that I was in the early stages of pregnancy, because I had a little bit of a doughiness to me. I was a little bit more voluptuous. My boobs were out of control. My husband was thrilled. It gave her more oomph,” she says of her character Sabine, a gardener working in the royal court at Versailles. “I had to make sure she was palpable.”

The Oscar winner is approaching her 40th birthday on Oct. 5 with the same zest with which she’s devouring her chicken salad, doused in dressing.

“I have felt this desire to have real diversity in the roles I’ve been given the opportunity to play,” she says. “My domestic life has really lent itself to those things being possible. We can really be a little unit. No one has to get left behind.”

Alan Rickman, who directed Chaos and plays King Louis XIV, reunited with Winslet 20 years after costarring with her in 1995’s Sense and Sensibility. How has she changed over the years?

“It’s 20 years of children and marriage and life. What does that do to people?” he says. “She comes to the set as a very strong, focused but free individual. Her sense of humor doesn’t desert her and there’s no frills. With Kate, you see that everything is real. Nothing has happened, except life.”

Winslet is one of the very few actresses who appears to be aging naturally and gracefully. She wiggles her eyebrows and crinkles her forehead to shoot down any rumors of Botox.

“Look. I mean, seriously? Print that I did that for you. Write that,” she says. “It does irritate me when people suggest I’ve had that stuff done. I don’t want people to think I’m a hypocrite.” 

By Donna Freydkin, USA Today

(Tribune Content Agency)