Kate Winslet says appearing on ‘Saturday Night Live’ was “a hotbed of anxiety”.
Kate Winslet
The 45-year-old actress took part in the long-running comedy show in 2004 the week after Ashlee Simpson’s lip-synching snafu, and has remembered feeling anxious about her appearance because she was worried she would suffer a similar slip up.
In a clip obtained by PEOPLE from the Hamptons International Film Festival’s ‘A Conversation with…’ series, she recalled: "When I did ‘SNL’ I was on the week after Ashlee Simpson. I was the next show after. Let me tell you, that studio was just a hotbed of anxiety.”
And things got worse when she was told the show’s writers didn’t have her opening monologue ready by the day of their dress rehearsals.
She added: "There’s this thing of the opening monologue and they kept saying to me, 'Kate we’re so sorry, we just don’t have it yet, give us a moment.’
"It gets to Friday when we have the dress rehearsal, no opening monologue. I’m literally s******* myself. [I said,] 'Guys please just make something up, let me make something up, just tell me what I'm doing’.”
Kate was then asked if she could tap dance, and the ‘Titanic’ star learned a tap-dancing and singing routine in three hours before attending the dress rehearsal.
The panicked routine came just one week after Ashlee was booked as a performer on the show and was set to close the night by playing her song ‘Autobiography’.
But the performance was thrown into chaos when another of her songs, ‘Pieces of Me’, started playing before she raised the microphone to her mouth.
A backlash soon ensued, with fans criticising the singer for using pre-recorded vocals for a live performance.
She then revealed that she had completely lost her voice due to an acid reflux flare-up, which only led to more teasing from online trolls.
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