Kate Winslet Called Choreographing Her ‘Ammonite’ Love Scene With Saoirse Ronan A Career Highlight

Ammonite, director Francis Lee’s follow-up to his acclaimed God’s Own Country, stars Kate Winslet as a famous fossil finder (an FFF, if you will) who develops a romantic relationship with a shy married woman played by Saoirse Ronan. If longing gazes on a constantly-overcast British seashore gets you going, this is the movie for you! It’s the first time Winslet and Ronan have worked together, and they brought their nominated-for-a-combined-11-Oscars talent to self-choreographing one of the film’s sex scenes.

“Saoirse and I choreographed the scene ourselves,” Winslet told the Hollywood Reporter. “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 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 by far the least self-conscious.”

I dunno about you, Kate Winslet, but “you go down there, then you do this, then you climb up here” is how I eat a sandwich. Anyway, there are countless horror stories about the things male directors have made actresses do in sex scenes, so Winslet and Ronan choreographing the scene to make them feel most at ease is a welcome change of pace.