Winslet furious with 'Reader' rape claims

Kate Winslet has taken offence to claims that her character in The Reader is involved in the statutory rape of a young boy.

In Stephen Daldry's upcoming World War II drama, Winslet plays a former Nazi concentration camp officer, Hanna Schmitz, who starts an affair with a 15-year-old.

Winslet reacted angrily in an interview with Comingsoon when it was suggested that the movie's central relationship equated to rape.

She said: "I'm so sorry, 'statutory rape'? I've got to tell you, I'm so offended by that. No, I really am. I genuinely am. To me, that is absolutely not this story at all. That boy knows exactly what he's doing. For a start, Hanna Schmitz thinks that he's 17, not 15, you know? She's not doing anything wrong. They enter that relationship on absolutely equal footing.

"Statutory rape - really please, don't use that phrase. I do genuinely find it offensive, actually. This is a beautiful and very genuine love story and that is always how I saw it. I was very moved by how much these two people came to mean to each other.

"You know, this is a boy's first experience of intimacy in that way, and love in that way, and understanding of what love is and can mean, and how deeply it affects the rest of his life because he loved that women. She wasn't cruel to him. She didn't force him into anything at all. There's nothing I believe to be remotely inappropriate or salacious about that relationship."

The Reader opens in UK cinemas on January 2.