Kate Winslet felt "scared" filming 'The Mountain Between Us'.

Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet

The 41-year-old actress portrays Alex Martin in the romantic based on Charles Martin's survival thriller novel of the same name, and the star has admitted the harsh weather conditions in the Purcell Mountains near Calgary and the scene where she came face to face with a lion frightened her, although she "loved" working on the project.

She told Entertainment Weekly: "As hard as it was, as scary as it was, I really did love it.

"It was quite frightening, but amazing at the same time because of how spectacularly beautiful it was."

Kate was not fazed by the obstacles and actually felt "excited" by the "physical challenges".

She said: "I was excited by the physical challenge. I hadn't done something quite so extreme for a really long time."

And the minus 30 degree temperature took its toll on filmmaker Henry Abu-Assad who couldn't move his mouth to direct the cast because his face had frozen.

He explained: "On certain days, I couldn't move my mouth. My muscles in my face were frozen."

But the 'The Dressmaker' star thinks it is "funny" how her audience will not believe the circumstances her and her colleagues had to endure whilst filming the movie.

She said: "There's a funny thing that happens with actors. From the outside looking in people assume that it wouldn't be as cold for the actors, that there would have been extra things or magical fairy dust sprinkled on them to make them not as cold as everybody else. Just forget all that, because that does not come into play in this film at all."

And Kate believes people will compare her appearance in 'The Mountain Between Us' with 'Titanic', which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, although she believes the two productions are "wildly different".

She explained: "I'm realising now, as I'm talking about this film, people are going to want to compare it to 'Titanic'. Actually, they are so wildly different."