Kate Winslet gave herself some blunt advice on Goodbye June - "don't f*** it up"

Asked what the best director's note she penned was at a screening of Goodbye June in New York, Kate said: "Don't f*** it up. But then I think that's always my note to myself anyway."

The Oscar-winning star admits that she had to take a different approach to her acting in the movie - which has been written by her son Joe Anders, whose father is Kate's ex-husband Sam Mendes - because her directorial commitments meant that she didn't have the time to spare for learning lines.

Kate said: "I just had to give myself lots of options, you know. Between takes, when it was a scene that I was in or a particularly difficult scene. I think between those takes I would pace up and down thinking, 'OK what else haven't I tried?'

"It was just really about making sure I had my options. I did learn the film for myself like a play, which I typically don't do. Normally I would be incredibly familiar with it, I may learn big set pieces, the 15-page things. It's extraordinary and you want to feel rooted in that dialogue and confident but I just knew I wasn't going to have time."

The Titanic star added: "I just didn't have the time to be learning lines, so I just had to know it and jump in and do it."

Winslet also faced the logistical challenge of trying to shoot a Nativity scene in the film - which centres on a family who come together to be with their dying mother, played by Dame Helen Mirren, during the Christmas period - with babies who were only allowed to film for half an hour per day.

She said: "You can only put a baby in front of a camera for 30 minutes per day, thank God they were identical twin girls.

"There's literally somewhere, when you say 'Action', they hit a stopwatch and they're actually timing how long that take is and they add it up. It's like, 'Okay that's the 30 minutes with Blake done, let's get Casey, we're gonna swap the babies.'"