Kate & Leo's revelations at 'Revolutionary Road' Q&A

By Kevin Lally

Co-stars of the biggest movie of all time, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are also two of the most gifted actors of their generation. DiCaprio, 34, has earned three Oscar nominations, while Winslet, 33, is the youngest actress to have attained five Oscar nods. Each actor gives an exceptionally strong performance in director Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, certain to be recognized by the Academy when nominations are announced on January 22.

DiCaprio, Winslet, Mendes, and supporting actors Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, David Harbour and Zoe Kazan were all on hand for a Q&A session moderated by Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers at a packed Producers Guild screening of Revolutionary Road at the AMC 34th Street Theatre in Manhattan last night. They seemed happy to be there, and justifiably proud of their work.

Based on the celebrated 1961 novel by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a onetime "golden" couple whose marriage and dreams are suffocated by life in suburbia in the 1950s. Their impetuous plan to change their fates and move to Paris merely underscores the fragility of their bond.

Winslet, working for the first time with her director husband Mendes, described the theme of the Yates novel as "the eternal struggle to find happiness." In the search for personal identity, she confided, "we all experience moments of incredible pain." The tragedy of Frank and April is that "they don't even know what they're hoping for anymore."

DiCaprio marveled at the "voyeuristic quality" of the material. "You shouldn't be hearing these conversations," he said, adding that Yates "taps into the unconscious voice we all have."

The two stars were thrilled by the complex emotional demands of their parts, and they each deliver arguably their strongest, rawest performances under Mendes' direction. "I couldn't wait to attack Kate," DiCaprio said of the movie's most ferocious moments opposite his onetime Titanic love and close friend.

Winslet confessed that "I don't switch off" at the end of the shooting day, unlike her husband, which led to a few unwelcome middle-of-the-night pleas to discuss new insights about her character.

Adding some fun to the Q&A were the supporting cast. Bates, who plays an intrusive neighbor, said she lost weight for the role but was distressed to see new wrinkles. "I look exactly like my mother!" she lamented.  Harbour, who plays one of the Wheelers' best friends, joked that his intimate dance scene with Winslet made just the desired impression: "sexy and pathetic."

But the night's scene-stealer, just as in the film, was New York theatre veteran Michael Shannon, who plays Bates' bluntly truthful son, recovering from shock treatments in an insane asylum. "I'm not right for many parts," he gratefully acknowledged about this award-bait role. When Travers asked the panel why modern audiences should relate to a story about a disintegrating marriage in the 1950s, Shannon had a retort worthy of his volatile character: "Not all films can be as contemporary and relevant as vampires and James Bond."