Here is Kate Winslet at the Bambi Awards in Potsdam, Germany on Thursday. The dress looks pretty, doesn’t it? She’s gained a little weight back, I think. She doesn’t look as sucked-plucked-and-tucked as she did during the 2009 awards season, but she still looks good, albeit a little… puffy. Like plastic surgery or Botox puffy. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe it was jet-lag. Maybe it was German beer. The dress is even better from the back, too – lots of sparkle! Winslet also carried a clutch that was bedazzled with her initials. Only Winslet could pull of something so classy!

Kate won a Bambi for her role in The Reader. The Bambis are given out specifically to “recognize excellence in international media and television with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the Germany public.” I’m not sure how Kate Winslet playing a Nazi concentration camp prison guard does wonders for Germany, but it was a good performance, and Kate was cool to show up to receive her award with grace. The actual award itself is one of the heaviest around – it’s 3.6 kg, and made of bronze and 18-carat gold. Sweet.

Kate Winslet returned to the German film studio where she made the Oscar-winning film “The Reader” on Thursday evening to accept the 2009 Bambi Award for best international actress.

The British actress, who won the Academy Award for best actress, told the gala ceremony of 800 that she enjoyed the work at the Babelsberg studios outside Berlin so much two years ago that she was always glad to return.

“Ever since we made ‘The Reader’ I’m always trying to find ways to come back to Germany — it was special,” said Winslet, whom the jury honored as “an actress who doesn’t just slip into her roles but rather puts herself into the soul of her roles.”

Winslet struggled to hold up the 3.6-kg Bambi made of bronze and 18-carat gold at the ceremony broadcast live on German TV.

“This is very heavy so I’m going to put this down,” said Winslet, who played a German woman with a secret Nazi past in the romantic drama “The Reader”.

She added she treasured the experience working with the German cast and crew.

“They had a really wonderful sense of humor even in the face of some brutal filming hours,” she said.

Her comment prompted German comedian Michael Mittermeier to quip later: “Kate Winslet, you’re the first person from England to ever say we Germans have humor. Thank you, thank you!”

[From Reuters]

That’s funny – English people don’t think Germans are funny? I think Germans are funny. Every German I’ve ever met has a great sense of humor. That’s true of the English too, if we’re stereotyping nationalities’ senses of humor. Anyway, this is one of Kate’s rare red carpet appearances since her awards blitz earlier this year. She seems like she’s been taking it easy since then, which makes me happy. She doesn’t have to do a million films a year, and she probably enjoys the downtime with her family.