Kate Winslet turns TIFF’s closing red carpet into a full-on media frenzy

In the abstract, The Very Last Red Carpet sounds like a sad affair: the crowds, sick to death with celebrity, staying home to catch up on Big Brother or wash their hair; the few bleary-eyed media persons half-assing slow pitches at third-rate stars; the festival’s stranglehold on the city loosened to a weak, failing cling. But nope, nuh-uh, none of that. When Kate Winslet popped up at Roy Thomson Hall Saturday for the premiere of A Little Chaos (the closing gala carpet), fans and media crushed in as if the festival were just striking up—and for a period flick about gardening to boot. The Alan Rickman–directed film follows Winslet’s character, a landscape designer charged to construct the gardens at Versailles, as she squabbles—and then romances—the king’s chief architect. The Oscar-winning actress and mother of three dished about the little chaotic elements in her life and how she wouldn’t want it any other way. Meanwhile, Rickman, asked mainly about what it’s like working in period costume (because, duh, what else could you possibly ask the director of a historical drama?), offered only: “Uncomfortable,” chewing on every syllable just like Professor Snape.