Movie role inspires Kate Winslet to become gardening goddess

Kate Winslet has "destroyed" her hands and fingers perfecting her gardening skills after portraying French landscape artist Sabine De Barra in new movie A Little Chaos.

The Titanic star had always dreamed of becoming a gardener before taking on the role in pal Alan Rickman's directorial debut, and she admits she's even more passionate about becoming a green-fingered goddess after researching the role with a real-life landscaper.

She tells WENN, "I'm proud to say that every single night during filming I would go home and have to dig out mud because it just had to live in Sabine. I don't have any gardening talents, truth be told. I'm just not very good at it, but I love gardens and I'd love to be a gardener.

"Preparing for the film, I did spend a lot of time with a really lovely landscape architect who was just helpful in terms of making me look like I knew what I was doing and giving me some basic knowledge of plants. After the film, all my herbs that live on the kitchen countertop made their way out of their little pots and into the garden and I planted them properly to give them more of a fighting chance at life.

"My fingers were destroyed, bashed, cut, pricked; but then my fingers almost always are, really. I don't really get manicures because I'm always using my hands for everything."