Kate Winslet's Best Production Yet

Kate Winslet spoke with CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton in her first round of interviews since she had a new baby -- Mia Honey -- with her husband of two years, Jim Threapleton. They met while making the film Hideous Kinky in Morocco. She is promoting her new movie, Quills, based on the story of the Marquis de Sade, the French writer who gave the world the word for sadism. Starring Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Pheonix and Michael Caine, it is a far cry from the sweet romantic roles that made her famous.

Because all we know of the Marquis de Sade is that he wrote incredibly sexually explicit pornographic novels that were just disgusting.

I read some of them. They were absolutely outrageous and I had to put them down. And I don't get really shocked by things, and I was really shocked by some of the stuff I was reading.

But rather than dwelling on the content of the stories, (the film) displays a side of the life of the man that don't I think we've seen before.

FENTON: You have a reputation as an uncompromising, very brave, straightforward actress.

WINSLET: That's right. Well, I like to be. I do like to be straightforward and, yes, being brave is very important because sometimes you can find yourself in scary situations at work.

There are scenes that are difficult to do.

You can't run away from them. You have to go into it.

I've always been like that as an actress, and I think in life, as well, really.

FENTON: Well, you're a bit of a role model, too. How shall I put it? You're a role model for women who don't exactly fit the bill for an anorexic model.

WINSLET: That's nice to hear you say that I'm a role model because I would -- I will hope to be that. It is, I think, very important that there are young women in the world today who think that to be successful and to be loved and to be beautiful, you have to be thin.

Now, that's just absurd. Absolutely absurd.

And also having become successful and not being stick thin and, you know, I obviously want to wave that flag a bit as well and say, 'Look here, I did it and I'm not a size 4 or a size 6.'

FENTON: Do you mind doing the nude scenes?

WINSLET: No, not if they're right for the story. I mean, I always accept that they're difficult scenes to do.

That will never change and whenever the day comes to shoot the nude scene and I'm absolutely dreading it and thinking, 'Oh, no, I wish I wasn't doing this,' but I've never agreed to a role if I haven't agreed to the nudity, as well, if it's there.

FENTON: You've managed to carve out a little bit of private life. How do you do that?

WINSLET: You just do it and are determined about it. That's what I find. I'm very determined about it.

And I'm just very determined about having my life and being sre that no one else really knows about it because it is obviously very important to me, particularly now that we've got Mia.

FENTON: Congratulations. That's your best production so far.

WINSLET: That's my latest production. that's my best production so far. She's just great. It's really sort of amazing feeling.

It feels kind of strange to be doing these interviews today, because I'm in the real world again and I haven't been in the real world since she was born.

You go into this kind of cocoon and become incredibly protective. She's amazing and she's already changed me and changed our lives, and she's wonderful, really wonderful.

FENTON: It's a little premature to ask you but how do you intend to balance being a working mother and your duty towards your daughter?

WINSLET: Well, I'm not working for six or seven months now.

She's three weeks old today. So I'm going to spend all that time, obviously, with her and not do anything at all.

Actors say they never want to work again and then they're panicking where their next job is going to come from. So you never know.

Winslet's next job is a film adaptation of Emile Zola's novel Therese Raquin, which she is also producing.