Kate Winslet finds learning on the job is the best way to move forward

The 39-year old star plays Sabine De Barra in romantic period drama A Little Chaos, who is commissioned to create the Rockwork Grove in the gardens of the French palace under King Louis XIV.

KATE WINSLET HAS won numerous awards including an Oscar as well as widespread critical acclaim in her 20-year acting career but the Titanic star admits that she does not always think she has done the best she can on screen.

 The 39-year-old, who has received six Oscar nominations in all, is best known for her roles in the 2002 blockbuster as well as Revolutionary Road, Sense and Sensibility and The Reader for which she won the Academy Award in 2009.

 “I don’t think I always do actually (act very well on screen),” Winslet said at a promotional interview for her latest film A Little Chaos, in which she plays a landscape designer commissioned to work on the gardens at Versailles.

 “There are bits of the film I was watching and thinking I could have done that better but I think all actors feel like that, which is a good thing because then you’re constantly trying new things, trying to get better all the time and learn new things too.”

The 39-year old star plays Sabine De Barra in romantic period drama A Little Chaos, who is commissioned to create the Rockwork Grove in the gardens of the French palace under King Louis XIV.

 The film stars Alan Rickman as the king, Stanley Tucci as his brother Philippe, Duc d’Orleans and Mathias Schoenaerts as landscape artist Andre Le Notre.

 Winslet can be seen weeding and chopping down plants in the film but says the experience does not mirror real life.

 “I’m not a gardener. I wish I was,” Winslet told reporters at the London premiere of the film on Monday night.

 “Every year I say ‘Right, this year we’re going to do raised beds, this year we’re going to grow carrots, this year we’re going to do tomatoes,’ and somehow life gets in the way and we never get around to it.”

 Winslet reunites in the film with her Sense and Sensibility co-star Rickman, who also directed the fictional and loosely historical A Little Chaos.

 “Working with Alan again after 20 years ... was really a fantastic experience,” said the actress, who was dressed in a midnight blue dress.

 Asked how they had both changed since then, she said: “Well I think we’re probably both fatter and we’re definitely older but that’s the way it goes.”

Born in the English town of Reading into a family of actors, Winslet has been acting since the age of 11.

 She went to a performing arts school but did not go on to drama college. Instead she made her film debut in the 1994 Heavenly Creatures.

 Winslet said she has learned on the job, picking up tips from others.

 “You can never know enough, you can never stop learning ... I remember someone else saying to me ‘always go for honesty, absolute honesty’ and that has always helped as well,” she said, when asked about the tips she had been given.

 “The great trick is to try and convince the audience entirely that you are someone else, which is pretty tricky to do sometimes ... I wish I could say there were things like ‘Always stand up straight’ or ‘Never look down and to the right’ but no, really fairly big things have ... helped me the most.”