For her narration of a short story in the audiobookListen to the Storyteller (1999), Winslet won aGrammy Award. She performed the song "What If" for the soundtrack of her film,Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001). A co-founder of the charityGolden Hat Foundation, which aims to createautism awareness, Winslet has also written a book on the topic. Divorced from film directorsJim Threapleton andSam Mendes, Winslet has been married to businessman Edward Abel Smith[a] since 2012. She has a child from each marriage, two of whom are the actorsMia Threapleton andJoe Anders.
Early life
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born on 5 October 1975 inReading, Berkshire, to Sally Ann (née Bridges) and Roger John Winslet.[4][5] Her mother worked as a nanny and waitress, while her father, a struggling actor, took labouring jobs to support the family.[6][7] Her maternal grandparents were both actors and ran the Reading Repertory Theatre Company.[8] Winslet has two sisters, Anna and Beth, both of whom are actresses, and a younger brother, Joss.[6] The siblings are of British, Irish, and Swedish descent.[9] The family had limited financial means; they lived on free meal benefits and were supported by a charity, theActors' Charitable Trust.[8] When Winslet was ten, her father severely injured his foot in a boating accident and found it harder to work, leading to more financial hardships for the family.[6] Winslet has said her parents always made them feel cared for and that they were a supportive family.[6]
Winslet attended St Mary and All Saints' Church of England primary school.[10] Living in a family of actors inspired her to pursue acting from a young age.[8] She and her sisters participated in amateur stage shows at school and at a local youth theatre, named Foundations.[6][7] When she was five, Winslet made her first stage appearance asMary in her school's production of theNativity play.[11] She describes herself as an overweight child who was called "blubber" by her schoolmates and bullied for her appearance.[12][13] She said she did not let this stop her.[14]
In 1991, within two weeks of finishing herGCSE examinations, Winslet made her screen debut as one of the main cast members of theBBC science fiction television seriesDark Season, written byRussell T Davies.[19][20] Her part was that of Reet, a schoolgirl who helps her classmates fight against a sinister man distributing free computers to her school.[21][22] She did not earn much from the job and, at age sixteen, lack of funds forced Winslet to leave Redroofs.[6] To support herself, she worked at a delicatessen.[8]
Career
Early work and breakthrough (1992–1996)
In 1992, she had a small part in the television filmAnglo-Saxon Attitudes, an adaptation ofAngus Wilson's satirical novel.[23][24] Winslet, who weighed 13 stone 3 pounds (84 kg; 185 lb) at the time, played the daughter of an obese woman. During filming, after hearing an off-hand comment from the directorDiarmuid Lawrence about the likeness between her and the actress who played her mother, Winslet became motivated to lose weight.[25] She next took on the role of the young daughter of a bankrupt self-made man (played byRay Winstone) in the television sitcomGet Back (1992–1993).[26][27] She also had a guest role in a 1993 episode of the medical drama seriesCasualty.[28]
Winslet was among 175 women to audition forPeter Jackson's psychological dramaHeavenly Creatures (1994), and was cast after impressing Jackson with the intensity she brought to her part.[29] The New Zealand-based production is based on theParker–Hulme murder case of 1954, in which Winslet playedJuliet Hulme, a teenager who assists her friend, Pauline Parker (played byMelanie Lynskey), in the murder of Pauline's mother. She prepared for the part by reading the transcripts of the girls' murder trial, their letters and diaries, and interacted with their acquaintances.[30] She has said she learnt tremendously from the job.[8] Jackson filmed in the real murder locations, and the experience left Winslet traumatised.[15] She found it difficult to detach herself from her character, and said that after returning home, she often cried.[30] The film was a critical breakthrough for Winslet;[31][32]Desson Thomson, a reviewer forThe Washington Post, called her "a bright-eyed ball of fire, lighting up every scene she's in".[33] Winslet recorded "Juliet's Aria" for the film's soundtrack.[34] Also that year, she appeared as Geraldine Barclay, a prospective secretary, inthe Royal Exchange Theatre production ofJoe Orton's farceWhat the Butler Saw.[35]
Winslet had roles in two period dramas of 1996—Jude andHamlet. As withHeavenly Creatures, her roles in these films were those of women with a "mad edge".[30] InMichael Winterbottom'sJude, based on the novelJude the Obscure byThomas Hardy, she played Sue Bridehead, a young woman withsuffragette leanings who falls in love with her cousin, Jude (played byChristopher Eccleston). The criticRoger Ebert believed the part allowed Winslet to display her acting range, and praised her for the defiance she brought to the role.[42] After unsuccessfully auditioning forKenneth Branagh's 1994 filmMary Shelley's Frankenstein, she was cast in the part ofOphelia, the doomed lover of thetitle character, inBranagh's adaptation of theWilliam Shakespeare tragedyHamlet.[36] Twenty-year-old Winslet was intimidated by the experience of performing Shakespeare with established actors such as Branagh andJulie Christie, saying the job required a level of intellect that she thought she did not possess.[30] Mike Jeffries ofEmpire believed that she had played the part "well beyond her years".[43] Despite the acclaim,Jude andHamlet earned little at the box office.[44][45]
Worldwide recognition and independent films (1997–2003)
Winslet was keen on playing Rose DeWitt Bukater, a socialite aboard the ill-fatedRMSTitanic, inJames Cameron's epic romanceTitanic (1997). Cameron was initially reluctant to cast her, preferring the likes ofClaire Danes andGwyneth Paltrow, but she pleaded with him, "You don't understand! I am Rose! I don't know why you're even seeing anyone else!"[46] Her persistence led him to give her the part.[46]Leonardo DiCaprio featured as her love interest, Jack.Titanic had a production budget of $200 million, and its arduous principal photography was held atBaja Studios where a replica of the ship was created.[25] Filming proved taxing for Winslet; she almost drowned, caught influenza, experienced hypothermia, and had bruises on her arms and knees. The workload allowed her only four hours of sleep per day and she felt drained by the experience.[47][48] Writing forNewsweek,David Ansen commended Winslet for capturing her character's zeal with delicacy,[49] andMike Clark ofUSA Today considered her to be the film's prime asset.[50] Against expectations,Titanic went on to become thehighest-grossing film to that point, earning over $2 billion in box office receipts worldwide,[46][51] and established Winslet as a global star.[52] The film won elevenAcademy Awards—tied for most for a single film—includingBest Picture, and earned the 22-year-old Winslet a nomination forBest Actress.[53] She also receivedGolden Globe andSAG nominations for Best Actress.[54][55]
Winslet did not viewTitanic as a platform for larger salaries. She avoided parts in blockbuster films in favour of independent productions that were not widely seen, believing that she "still had a lot to learn" and was unprepared to be a star.[8][19][44] She later said her decision ensured career longevity.[56]Hideous Kinky, a low-budget drama shot before the release ofTitanic, was Winslet's sole film release of 1998.[57] She turned down offers to star inShakespeare in Love (1998) andAnna and the King (1999) to do the film.[58] Based on thesemi-autobiographical novel byEsther Freud,Hideous Kinky tells the story of a single British mother yearning for a new life in 1970s Morocco.[52][57]Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times credited Winslet for her decision to follow-upTitanic with such an offbeat project and highlighted how well she captured her character's "obliviousness and optimism".[57]
Jane Campion's psychological dramaHoly Smoke! (1999) featured Winslet as an Australian woman who joins an Indian religious cult. She found the script brave and was challenged by the idea of playing an unlikeable, manipulative woman.[52][56] She learnt to speak with an Australian accent and worked closely with Campion to justify her character's vileness.[52][59] The film required her to perform explicit sex scenes with co-starHarvey Keitel, and featured a scene in which her character appears naked and urinates on herself.[52][60] David Rooney ofVariety wrote, "Showing the kind of courage few young thesps would be capable of and an extraordinary range ... from animal cunning to unhinged desperation, [Winslet] holds nothing back."[61] That same year, she voiced a fairy for the animated filmFaeries,[62] and won theGrammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for narrating the short story "The Face in the Lake" for the children's audiobookListen to the Storyteller.[63][64]
InQuills (2000), a biopic of the erraticMarquis de Sade, starringGeoffrey Rush andJoaquin Phoenix, Winslet played the supporting role of a sexually repressed laundress working in a mental asylum.[65][66] Hailing her as the "most daring actress working today", James Greenberg ofLos Angeles magazine praised Winslet for "continuing to explore the bounds of sexual liberation".[67] She received a SAG Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.[68] The following year, she played a fictitious mathematician involved in the cracking of theEnigma ciphers inMichael Apted's espionage thrillerEnigma. Winslet's character was vastly expanded from a subsidiary love-interest in thenovel it was based on to a prominent code-breaker in the film.[69] She was pregnant while filming, and to prevent this from showing, she wore corsets under her costume.[70]
The biopicIris (2001) featured Winslet andJudi Dench as the novelistIris Murdoch at different ages. The directorRichard Eyre cast the two actresses after finding a "correspondence of spirit between them".[71] Winslet was drawn to the idea of playing an intellectual and zesty female lead, and in research, she read Murdoch's novels, studiedher husband's memoirElegy for Iris, and watched televised interviews of Murdoch.[72] The project was filmed over four weeks and allowed Winslet to bring her daughter, who was six months old at the time, on set.[72] Writing forThe Guardian,Martin Amis remarked that "the seriousness and steadiness of [Winslet's] gaze effectively suggest the dawning amplitude of the Murdoch imagination".[73] She received her third Oscar nomination forIris, in addition to BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress.[72][74]
Winslet's third film release of 2001 was the animated filmChristmas Carol: The Movie, based onCharles Dickens'novel. For the film's soundtrack she recorded "What If", which proved to be a commercial hit.[75][76] After a year-long absence from the screen, Winslet starred as a headstrong journalist interviewing a professor ondeath row in the thrillerThe Life of David Gale (2003). She agreed to the project to work with the directorAlan Parker, whom she admired, and believed the film raised pertinent questions about capital punishment.[77] Mick LaSalle thought the film had muddled the subject and disliked both the film and Winslet's performance.[78]
To avoidtypecasting in historical dramas, Winslet actively looked for roles in contemporary-set films.[79] She found it in the science fiction romanceEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), in which she played a neurotic and impetuous woman who decides to erase memories of her ex-boyfriend (played byJim Carrey).[80][81] Unlike her previous assignments, the role allowed her to display the quirky side to her personality.[82] Gondry encouraged Winslet and Carrey to improvise on set, and to keep herself agile she practised kickboxing.[81]Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind proved to be a modest financial success and several critics have regarded it as one of the best films of the 21st century.[83][84]Peter Travers ofRolling Stone described it as a "uniquely funny, unpredictably tender and unapologetically twisted romance" and found Winslet to be "electrifying and bruisingly vulnerable" in it.[85] A journalist forPremiere magazine commended her for abandoning her "corsetedEnglish rose persona", and ranked it as the 81st greatest film performance of all time.[86] Winslet considers it to be a favourite among her roles, and she received Best Actress nominations at the Oscar and BAFTA award ceremonies.[87][88][89] She has said the film marked a turning point in her career and prompted directors to offer her a wide variety of parts.[8]
Her next release of the year was the dramaFinding Neverland, about the relationship betweenJ. M. Barrie (played byJohnny Depp) and theLlewelyn Davies boys, which inspired Barrie to writePeter Pan. Winslet was paid £6 million to play the boys' mother,Sylvia, and despite her reluctance to star in another period piece, she agreed to the project after empathising with Sylvia's love for her children.[90][79][91]Ella Taylor ofLA Weekly found her to be "radiant and earthy as ever", andCNN'sPaul Clinton thought she was "exceptional in a delicate and finely tuned performance".[92][93] She received a second Best Actress nomination at that year's BAFTA Award ceremony.[89] With a box office gross of $116 million,Finding Neverland became her most widely seen film sinceTitanic.[44][94]
In 2005, Winslet took on a guest role in an episode of the British comedy sitcomExtras, starringRicky Gervais andStephen Merchant. She played a satirical version of herself in it—an actress, who in an effort to win an Oscar, takes the role of a nun in aHolocaust film.[95] She received aPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series nomination.[96] Within three months of giving birth to her second child, Winslet returned to work onRomance & Cigarettes, a musical romantic comedy directed byJohn Turturro, in which she played Tula, a promiscuous and foul-mouthed woman.[97] The part required her to sing and dance, and it helped her lose weight gained during the pregnancy.[79][98] She twisted her ankle while filming one of the dance sequences.[79]Derek Elley ofVariety wrote that despite her limited screen time, Winslet had "the showiest role and filthiest one-liners".[99] She turned down an offer fromWoody Allen to star inMatch Point (2005) to spend more time with her children.[79]
Winslet had four film releases in 2006. She first appeared inAll the King's Men, a political thriller set in 1940sLouisiana, featuringSean Penn andJude Law. She played the supporting part of the love interest to Law's character.[87] The film received negative reviews for its lack of political insight and narrative cohesiveness, and failed to recoup its $55 million investment.[100][101] Her next release, theTodd Field dramaLittle Children, was better received. Based on thenovel of the same name, the film tells the story of Sarah Pierce, an unhappy housewife who has an affair with a married neighbour (played byPatrick Wilson). Winslet was challenged by the role of an uncaring mother, as she did neither understand nor respect her character's actions.[102] Scenes requiring her to be hostile towards the child actress playing her daughter proved upsetting for her.[87][103] Having borne two children, she was nervous about the sex scenes in which she had to be nude; she took on the challenge to present a positive image for women with, in her words, "imperfect bodies".[103]A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times wrote that Winslet successfully "registers every flicker of Sarah's pride, self-doubt and desire, inspiring a mixture of recognition, pity and concern".[104] Once again, she received BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress; the latter making her, at 31, the youngest performer to accrue five Oscar nominations.[105]
AfterLittle Children, Winslet took on a part she found more sympathetic inNancy Meyers's romantic comedyThe Holiday.[106] She played a Briton who temporarilyexchanges homes with an American (played byCameron Diaz) during the Christmas holiday season. It became her biggest commercial success in nine years, grossing over $205 million worldwide.[107] The criticJustin Chang found the film formulaic yet pleasing, and took note of Winslet's radiance and charm.[108] In her final release of the year, she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat, in the animated filmFlushed Away.[109] Her sole project of 2007 was as the narrator for the English version of the French children's filmThe Fox and the Child.[110]
Awards success (2008–2011)
Winslet had two critically acclaimed roles in 2008.[111] After readingJustin Haythe's script forRevolutionary Road, an adaptation ofRichard Yates'sdebut novel, Winslet recommended the project to her then-husband, directorSam Mendes, and herTitanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.[112] The film traces the tribulations of a young married couple in 1950s suburban America. Winslet was drawn to the idea of playing a woman whose aspirations had not been met,[113] and she readThe Feminine Mystique to understand the psychology of unhappy housewives from the era.[112][113] Mendes encouraged Winslet and DiCaprio to spend time together, and she believed the small set they used helped them to develop their characters' strained relationship.[112] Hailing her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation",David Edelstein ofNew York magazine wrote that "[t]here isn't a banal moment in Winslet's performance—not a gesture, not a word."[114]
To avoid a scheduling conflict withRevolutionary Road, Winslet turned down an offer to star inThe Reader. After her replacementNicole Kidman left the project due to her pregnancy, Winslet was signed to it.[115] Directed byStephen Daldry,The Reader is based onBernhard Schlink's novelDer Vorleser and is about Hanna Schmitz, an illiterateNaziconcentration camp guard (Winslet), who has an affair with a teenage boy. Winslet researched the Holocaust and theSS guards. To educate herself on the stigma of illiteracy, she spent time with students at the Literacy Partners, an organisation that teaches adults to read and write.[116] She was unable to sympathise with Schmitz and struggled to play the part honestly without humanising the character's actions.[111][116] Despite this, some historians criticised the film for making Schmitz an object of the audience's sympathy and accused the filmmakers ofHolocaust revisionism.[117] Writing forVariety,Todd McCarthy commended Winslet for "suppl[ying] a haunting shell to this internally decimated woman," and Sukhdev Sandhu ofThe Daily Telegraph considered her to be "absolutely fearless here, not just in her willingness to expose herself physically, but her refusal to expose her character psychologically."[118][119]
Winslet received significant awards attention for her performances inRevolutionary Road andThe Reader.[120] She won a Golden Globe Award for each of these films, and for the latter, she was awarded the Academy Award andBAFTA Award for Best Actress.[111] At age 33, she surpassed her own record as the youngest performer to accrue six Oscar nominations.[111] She also became the third actress in history to win two Golden Globe Awards at the same ceremony.[121] Exhausted by the media attention during this period, Winslet took two years off work until she was ready to creatively engage again.[122]
Winslet returned to acting with the five-partHBO seriesMildred Pierce (2011), an adaptation ofJames M. Cain'snovel from the directorTodd Haynes. It is about the titular heroine (Winslet), a divorcée during theGreat Depression struggling to establish a restaurant business while yearning for the respect of her narcissistic daughter (played byEvan Rachel Wood). Winslet, who had recently divorced Mendes, believed certain aspects of her character's life mirrored her own.[122] She was intimidated by the scope of the production, as she featured in every scene of the 280-page script.[123] She was disturbed and upset by the story, and was particularly fascinated by the complex relationship between the mother-daughter pair.[123][124] She collaborated closely with the production and costume designers, and learnt to bake pies and prepare chickens.[123] The broadcast received a limited audience but gained positive reviews.[125][126]Matt Zoller Seitz ofSalon called the series a "quiet, heartbreaking masterpiece" and described Winslet's performance as "terrific—intelligent, focused and seemingly devoid of ego".[127] She won thePrimetime Emmy Award,Golden Globe andSAG Award for Best Actress in a miniseries.[128]
The ensemble thrillerContagion fromSteven Soderbergh was Winslet's first film release of 2011. She was cast as a disease detective for theCDC, and she modelled her role onAnne Schuchat, the director of theNCIRD.[129]Contagion was a commercial success, andDavid Denby ofThe New Yorker credited Winslet for capturing the essence of an exasperated woman.[130][131] Her next project was theRoman Polanski-directedCarnage, adapted from the playGod of Carnage byYasmina Reza. Set entirely inside an apartment, the black comedy follows two sets of parents feuding over their respective children.Jodie Foster,John C. Reilly, andChristoph Waltz co-starred. The cast rehearsed the script like a play for two weeks, and Winslet brought her children with her to Paris for the eight weeks of filming.[132][133] Critics found the adaptation to be less compelling than the play, but praised the performances of Winslet and Foster.[134] They both received Golden Globe nominations for it.[135]
Winslet said her workload in 2011 helped her overcome heartbreak from her divorce, and after completing work onCarnage she took a break from acting to focus on her children.[6][122] A short part that she had filmed four years prior for the anthology filmMovie 43 was her sole screen appearance of 2012, and it received the worst reviews of her career.[136][137] Winslet also performed an audiobook recording ofÉmile Zola's novelThérèse Raquin.[138][139] She was reluctant to acceptJason Reitman's offer to star in his 2013film adaptation ofJoyce Maynard's novelLabor Day, but agreed after Reitman postponed the production for a year to accommodate Winslet's commitment to her children.[6] Set over a Labor Day weekend, it tells the story of Adele (Winslet), anagoraphobic single mother who falls in love with an escaped convict. Describing Adele's characterisation as having "more vulnerability than strength", Winslet found her a departure from the strong-willed women she typically played.[6] A scene in the film required her to make a pie, for which she drew on her baking experience fromMildred Pierce.[140] Reviews of the film were negative;Chris Nashawaty ofEntertainment Weekly dismissed it as "mawkish and melodramatic" but credited Winslet for adding layers to her passive role.[141][142] She received her tenth Golden Globe nomination.[143]
The novelty of playing a villain drew Winslet to the part of Jeanine Matthews in the science fiction filmDivergent (2014).[144][145] Set in a dystopian future, the adaptation ofVeronica Roth's young adultnovel starsShailene Woodley as a heroine fighting an oppressive regime headed by Winslet's character. She was pregnant with her third child during production, and her tight-fitting costumes had to be altered to accommodate the pregnancy.[145] To maintain her character's intimidating persona, she remained aloof from her co-stars for much of the filming.[144]Richard Lawson ofVanity Fair compared the film unfavourably to theHunger Games series, and found Winslet to be underutilised in it.[146] The film grossed $288 million worldwide.[147]A Little Chaos marked her return to the period film genre.[148] Directed byAlan Rickman, it is about a rivalry among gardeners commissioned to create a fountain at thePalace of Versailles. Winslet's role was that of fictional architect Sabine de Barra, a character she believed had overcome extreme grief and hardship like herself.[148] Catherine Shoard ofThe Guardian took note of the "emotional honesty" Winslet brought to her part, but criticised the implausibility of her role.[149] Also that year, she read audiobooks ofRoald Dahl's children's novelsMatilda andThe Magic Finger.[150][151]
In 2015, Winslet reprised the role of Jeanine Matthews in the second instalment of theDivergent series, subtitledInsurgent, which despite negative reviews grossed $297 million worldwide.[152][153] Her next film, anadaptation of the Australian gothic novelThe Dressmaker, was described by the directorJocelyn Moorhouse as being reminiscent of the westernUnforgiven (1992).[154] Winslet starred as thefemme fatale Tilly Dunnage, a seamstress who returns to her hometown years after she was accused of murder. She learnt to sew for the part and designed some of her own costumes.[154] The project was filmed in the Australian desert and she found it difficult to wear couture dresses in the harsh weather.[155] Despite disliking the film, Robert Abele of theLos Angeles Times credited Winslet for underplaying her over-the-top part.[156] The film emerged as one of thehighest-grossing Australian films of all time, but earned little elsewhere.[157][158] Winslet won theAACTA Award forBest Actress.[159]
While filmingThe Dressmaker, Winslet became aware of a forthcomingSteve Jobs biopic written byAaron Sorkin and directed byDanny Boyle. Keen to play Jobs's marketing chief and confidanteJoanna Hoffman, she sent a picture of herself dressed as Hoffman to the film's producer.[160]Steve Jobs, starringMichael Fassbender in the title role, is told in three acts, each depicting a key milestone in Jobs's career. In preparation, Winslet spent time with Hoffman, and worked with a dialect coach to speak in Hoffman's accent, a mixture of Armenian and Polish, which she considered to be the most difficult of her career.[160] The cast rehearsed each act like a play and filmed it in sequence. Winslet collaborated closely with Fassbender, and their off-screen relationship mirrored the collegial dynamic between Jobs and Hoffman.[160] The film earned her some of the best reviews of her career, though it was a box-office flop.[45][161][162] Peter Howell of theToronto Star commended Winslet for finding "strength and grace" in her part, and Gregory Ellwood ofHitFix thought she improved on Hoffman's characterisation.[163][164] She won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for Best Supporting Actress, and received her seventh Oscar nomination.[165]
John Hillcoat's ensemble crime-thrillerTriple 9 (2016) featured Winslet as Irina Vlaslov, a ruthless Russian-Israeli gangster.[166] The criticAnn Hornaday ofThe Washington Post felt Winslet had failed to effectively portray her.[167] Her next release of the year,Collateral Beauty, about a man (played byWill Smith) struggling with the death of his daughter, was panned by critics.[168] Writing forVulture,Emily Yoshida dismissed the film as a vacuous remake ofA Christmas Carol and added that Winslet had "never looked more painted and tired".[169] It was a modest earner at the box office.[170] Winslet agreed to the romantic disaster filmThe Mountain Between Us (2017) to take on the challenge of a role requiring physical exertion.[171][172] It featured her andIdris Elba as two strangers who crash land on an icy and isolated mountain range. They filmed in the mountains of Western Canada at 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) above sea level where the temperature was well below freezing.[172] Winslet performed her own stunts and described it as the most physically gruelling experience of her career.[173] Moira Macdonald ofThe Seattle Times opined that the duo's charisma and chemistry enhanced a mediocre film.[174]
Woody Allen'sWonder Wheel, a drama set in 1950sConey Island, was Winslet's final release of 2017. She played Ginny, a temperamental housewife having an affair with a lifeguard (played byJustin Timberlake). She described Ginny as permanently dissatisfied and uneasy, and playing her proved difficult for Winslet, who experienced anxiety.[172][175]Manohla Dargis ofThe New York Times disliked Allen's writing but credited Winslet for filling her "shabby character with feverish life".[176] When asked during the film's promotion about her decision to work with Allen despite anallegation of child sexual abuse against him, Winslet chose not to comment on the filmmaker's personal life but said she was pleased with the collaboration.[172] She would later go on to express regret over working with both Allen and Roman Polanski.[177] In 2019, Winslet provided her voice toMoominvalley, an animated television series about theMoomins, and took on a leading role alongsideSusan Sarandon andMia Wasikowska inBlackbird, a remake of the Danish filmSilent Heart (2014).[178] Benjamin Lee ofThe Guardian dismissed it as "less of a film and more of an actors' workshop" and found Winslet miscast.[179]
Resurgence and expansion (2020–present)
Winslet portrayedpaleontologistMary Anning inAmmonite (2020), a period drama about a romance between Anning andCharlotte Murchison (played bySaoirse Ronan) set in 1840s England.[180] She dropped out ofWes Anderson'sThe French Dispatch to have more preparation time for the project. She collaborated closely with Ronan, and they choreographed their own sex scenes.[181] For much of the filming, she lived in isolation in a rented cottage inDorset, where the film was shot, to get into her character's headspace.[177]Caryn James of the BBC credited Winslet for portraying Anning as "stern and brittle but immensely sympathetic" and considered her "contained, potent performance" to be one of the best of her career, and Manuel Betancourt ofNew York magazine welcomed it as a "return to form".[182][183] She next voiced the titular horse in afilm adaptation of the novelBlack Beauty, which was released onDisney+.[184]
In 2021, Winslet executive produced and starred inMare of Easttown, an HBO miniseries about a troubled police detective solving a murder case.[185] Set inDelaware County, Winslet insisted on using the "Delco accent", a version ofPhiladelphia English used in the county; she considered it to be one of the hardest accents she has had to learn.[186][187] To play Mare, a woman who has lost a child to suicide, she created a backstory for her character and collaborated closely with a grief counsellor.[188] The series and Winslet's performance received critical acclaim;[189]Richard Roeper wrote that she "adds to a long list of magnificent, disappear-into-the-character performances" andLucy Mangan ofThe Guardian opined, "If you can have a defining performance this late in a career, this is surely Winslet's."[190][191]Mare of Easttown proved to be a ratings hit for HBO,[192] and Winslet once again won the Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Awards for Best Actress in a miniseries.[193]
FollowingMare of Easttown, Winslet took a year off work to spend time with her family.[194] She narrated the documentaryEleven Days in May (2022), about the2021 bombing of Gaza by Israel.[195] She starred with her daughterMia Threapleton in an improvised feature-length episode of theChannel 4 anthology seriesI Am..., titled "I Am Ruth", about the negative effects of social media, which she developed and co-authored with directorDominic Savage.[196] She won twoBAFTA TV Awards forBest Actress andBest Single Drama (as producer).[197] In her acceptance speech, she urged lawmakers to criminalise harmful digital content.[198] In 2017 and 2018, Winslet concurrently filmedtwo sequels to James Cameron's science fiction filmAvatar (2009) usingmotion capture technology.[199][200] She learntfreediving for her role and was able to hold her breath underwater for seven minutes, setting a new record for any film scene shot underwater.[201][202] Released in 2022,Avatar: The Way of Water earned over $2 billion to rank as the third highest-grossing film of all time and Winslet's second film afterTitanic to cross the $2 billion mark.[203]
Winslet in 2023
After being attached to a biopic of model and war photographerLee Miller for eight years, Winslet produced and starred inLee (2023). She hired cinematographerEllen Kuras (who had filmed her inEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) to make her feature directorial debut with the project.[204][205] Winslet slipped and fell while filming, leading to threehaematomas on her spine; she continued working despite the pain.[206] Reviewers forThe Hollywood Reporter andThe Daily Beast noted how much Winslet's performance helped elevate a conventional biopic.[207][208] Winslet next executive produced and starred in the HBO miniseriesThe Regime (2024), a satire about a fictional authoritarian country.[209] To play a megalomaniac dictator, she consulted a neuroscientist and a psychotherapist to create a backstory for her character.[210] Critics deemed her performance superior to the series.[211] She earned Golden Globe nominations for her performances in bothLee andThe Regime, in addition to a BAFTA nomination forOutstanding British Film as a producer onLee.[212][213]
Journalists consider Winslet to be among the finest actresses of her generation.[8][112][111][215] Despite achieving stardom early in her career with the blockbusterTitanic, she has rarely acted in commerce-driven films.[160][216] A journalist forElle believes that her choices reflect the "soul and attitude of a jobbing actress, trapped in the body of a movie star".[217] Winslet was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time in a 2022 readers' poll byEmpire; the magazine termed her "a dramatic force, turning her hand to all kinds of periods and genres with an inimitable sense of dignity and strength".[218]
Winslet belongs to a group of esteemed British actresses who are typically showing "restraint, rendering emotions through intellect rather than feelings, and a sense of irony, which demonstrates the heroine's superior understanding".[219]Tom Perrotta, the author ofLittle Children, has said that Winslet "gravitates toward troubling roles in smaller films", typically those of "thorny, potentially unsympathetic" women.[220] The journalistMark Harris writes that she specialises in "unsentimentalized, restless, troubled, discontented, disconcerted, difficult women" and John Hiscock ofThe Daily Telegraph has identified a theme of characters who are free-spirited with a sexual edge to them.[11][111]Anthony Lane ofThe New Yorker associates Winslet with stubbornness, writing that "the set of her jaw and the blaze of her glance suggest a self-freeing spirit who knows the path ahead and is determined to take it".[221] Stephen Whitty ofNJ.com associates Winslet with "serious, almost despairing material", although he finds it hard to pigeonhole her as an actress.[216] Josephine Livingstone ofThe New Republic, however, finds Winslet unconvincing in roles where she has "no real emotional vulnerability", believing she is most compelling when she has "the opportunity to get hysterical".[222]
"I can't just learn my lines and do [my job], but perhaps that's because I don't want to act, I want to be. And I do think there's a difference."
Leonardo DiCaprio, her co-star inTitanic andRevolutionary Road, considers Winslet to be "the most prepared and well-researched actor on set", and Jude Law, her co-star inThe Holiday, believes that despite her seriousness she remains "very calm and good-natured".[122][223] HerSteve Jobs director Danny Boyle has identified a willingness in Winslet to avoid typecasting and said that she takes an effort "to reposition directors' and producers' perspective on her" to allow herself to be challenged as an artist.[160]
Winslet has said she is interested in playing "angst-ridden women" with strong dispositions masking flaws and insecurities,[111][172] and that she connects with "women who are either finding their way out of a situation, looking for love, having some struggle within love, or questioning the big things in life".[6] Drawn to parts that are in tandem with her personal struggles at certain points in her life,[8] she finds it difficult to detach herself from her roles, saying that "you have to confront your true feelings every single day. And that's pretty exhausting. Then you have to go home and make dinner".[216][223] Even so, she finds it therapeutic to perform.[122] Winslet is known for her willingness to perform nude scenes, having done so in over a dozen of her films, although she considers its contribution to the narrative before agreeing to it.[160][224] She believes that such scenes promote a positive body image amongst women.[225]
Personal life
While filmingDark Season, a fifteen-year-old Winslet began a romantic relationship with actor-writerStephen Tredre, who was twelve years her senior.[15][226] She considered him a major influence in her life and they lived together in London from 1991.[7][25][227] They broke up in 1995, but remained close until Tredre died ofbone cancer two years later.[15][228] Winslet decided not to attend the premiere ofTitanic to attend his funeral.[229] In 2008, she said that she had not overcome his death.[7]
Winslet, pregnant with her third child, in 2013
A year after Tredre's death, Winslet metJim Threapleton on the set ofHideous Kinky, on which he served as an assistant director.[226][229] They married in November 1998 at her family's local church, and their daughter,Mia, was born in 2000.[10][15][230] Describing her marriage to Threapleton as a "mess", Winslet later said that she lost control of her instincts during this period.[82] They divorced in 2001.[231][232]
Soon after separating from Threapleton, she met directorSam Mendes when he offered her a part in a play; she turned down the offer but began dating him.[233] Dismayed at how the British tabloids portrayed her personal life, Winslet relocated to New York City.[82] She married Mendes in May 2003 on the island ofAnguilla, and their son,Joe, was born later that year.[7][234] The family divided their time in New York with frequent visits to their estate in theCotswolds, England.[233] Amid intense media speculation of an affair between Mendes and actressRebecca Hall, he and Winslet announced their separation in 2010 and were divorced a year later.[122][235] She reported being heartbroken by the split, but affirmed her determination to look after her children in spite of her marital break-up.[236] In 2010, Winslet moved with her children from New York City to England in order to avoidpaparazzi.[237]
While holidaying atRichard Branson's estate onNecker Island in 2011, Winslet met his nephew Edward Abel Smith (legally known as Ned Rocknroll from 2008 to 2019),[1] the then-head of marketing promotion and astronaut experience atVirgin Galactic,[238] during a house fire.[160][239] They married in December 2012 in New York, and their son, Bear, was born the following year.[240][241] Following their wedding, Abel Smith became astay-at-home dad helping Winslet raise her children, and also helping her practice her lines despite being severelydyslexic.[242] He later added "Winslet" as one of his middle names.[243] After moving back to England, Winslet purchased a property worth £3.25 million by the sea inWest Wittering, Sussex, where she lives with Abel Smith and her children as of 2015[update].[244] In a 2015 interview, she commented on how much she enjoyed living in the countryside.[245]
Winslet has stated that despite three marriages and a family structure that might be perceived by some as "unconventional", she does not consider it to be any "less of a family".[8] She turns down offers of work that otherwise would take her away from her children for too long, and likes to schedule her filming commitments around their school holidays.[6] Discussing her parenting style, she said she enjoys packing lunches and doing the school run.[246]
Activism and charity
Winslet has lent her support to several charities and causes, along with financial donations and items for auctions.[247][75][248] In 2006, she became a patron of aGloucester-based charity, the Family Haven, which provides counselling services to vulnerable families.[249] The same year, hand-made envelopes designed by Winslet were auctioned for the "Pushing the Envelope" campaign created by theNational Literacy Trust.[250] Winslet was one of the celebrities to participate in a 2007 auction to raise funds for theAfghanistan Relief Organization.[251] In 2009, she contributed to the Butterfly Book, a compilation of doodles made by several celebrities, to raise money for leukaemia research.[252] Also that year, Winslet, along with Leonardo DiCaprio, James Cameron, andCeline Dion, contributed $30,000 to supportMillvina Dean, the last livingTitanic survivor at the time. The funds covered nursing home fees in the UK where Dean resided.[253]
In 2009, Winslet narrated the English version of an Icelandic documentary namedA Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism, about Margret Ericsdottir, whose child Keli Thorsteinsson has non-verbalautism. Inspired by the story, she teamed with Ericsdottir in 2010 to form an NGO named theGolden Hat Foundation.[254] The organisation aims to createautism awareness and was named after a poem written by Thorsteinsson.[255][256] As the ambassador for the luxury brandsLancôme andLongines, Winslet partnered with these companies to raise awareness and funds for the foundation. She created a make-up collection for Lancôme in 2011 and, in 2017, she designed a new watch for Longines.[254][257][258]
In 2012, Winslet wrote a book about autism, entitledThe Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism, which was published bySimon & Schuster. It contains correspondence between Winslet and Ericsdottir, personal statements from various celebrities, and contributions from Thorsteinsson.[259] A reviewer forPublishers Weekly praised the book for its "warmth and sincerity".[260] The United Nations featured the book during a ceremony on theWorld Autism Awareness Day of 2012.[261] For her work with the Golden Hat Foundation, Winslet received Spain's Yo Dona award for Best Humanitarian Work.[262]
Winslet narrated a video forPETA in 2010 that showed animal cruelty in the production offoie gras.[263] She encouraged chefs to remove the item from their menu and urged consumers to boycott it.[264] In 2015, she lent her support to theUNICEF campaign World's Largest Lesson, which creates awareness among children aboutsustainable development andglobal citizenship.[265] Teased as a child for her weight, Winslet takes a stand against body-shaming and bullying.[266] She narrated an Australian animated short film namedDaisy Chain (2015), about a victim of cyberbullying.[267] In 2017, Winslet teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental foundation for a fundraiser on global warming.[268] Also that year, she and DiCaprio auctioned a private dinner with themselves to raise money for a British woman's cancer treatment.[269] Winslet teamed with Lancôme and the National Literacy Trust in 2018 to launch a programme that aims to educate underprivileged women in the UK.[270] In 2020, Winslet read a bedtime story as part ofSave with Stories to raise funds forSave the Children's EmergencyCoronavirus Appeal.[271] In 2021, Winslet commented onhomophobia in Hollywood, saying that she knew actors "who are terrified their sexuality will be revealed and that it will stand in the way of their being cast in straight roles".[272] In 2025, Winslet was appointed as an ambassador forThe King's Foundation.[273]
Public image
In a 2015 article forElle, Sally Holmes described Winslet's ability to establish rapport with her manner.[274] Jo Ellison ofVogue writes that she has an "authoritative, almost ambassadorial aura", andKira Cochrane ofThe Guardian considers her to be "articulate, sophisticated, [with] a definite hint of grandeur".[113][122] Describing Winslet as plain-spoken, Krista Smith ofVanity Fair believes that despite her stardom she is unpretentious.[112]
Winslet's weight fluctuations over the years have been well-documented by the media.[226][275] She has been outspoken in her refusal to allow Hollywood to dictate her weight.[19][112] In 2003, the British edition ofGQ magazine published photographs of Winslet which had been digitally altered to make her look thinner and taller.[276] She said the alterations were made without her consent, andGQ subsequently issued an apology.[277][19][278] In 2007, Winslet won a libel case againstGrazia magazine after it claimed she had visited a dietitian.[279] She claimed £10,000 in damages, and donated the amount to an eating disorder charity.[247] She won another case in 2009 against the British tabloidDaily Mail after it claimed she had lied about her exercise regimen.[280] She received an apology and a payout of £25,000.[280]
Winslet was included onPeople magazine's "Most Beautiful People" listing in 2005.[281] Her beauty and sex appeal have been picked up by several other publications, includingHarper's Bazaar,Who, andEmpire magazines.[282] She has said she does not subscribe to thebeauty ideal of Hollywood, and uses her celebrity to empower women to accept their appearance with pride.[225] She has spoken againstBotox and plastic surgery.[283] In an effort to encourage natural ageing, she formed the British Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League, alongside fellow actressesEmma Thompson andRachel Weisz.[284] She instructs magazines and brands not to digitally smooth her wrinkles in photographs.[285][286] Winslet is reluctant to discuss thegender pay gap in the film industry, as she dislikes speaking publicly about her salary.[287] She has expressed an aversion to elaborate press junkets and red carpet events, terming them a waste of money.[177]
^"Kate Winslet discovers her Irish roots".Irish Central. 6 August 2019.Archived from the original on 7 August 2019. Retrieved12 August 2019.Kate Winslet can trace her roots back to Dublin. She learns about this link, courtesy of her paternal great-great-great-grandmother Eliza O'Brien... her roots are primarily British, Irish, and Swedish... The actress had long had a hunch her maternal ancestors were from Sweden but sadly was unable to confirm this before her mother, Sally, died
^"Divergent (2014)". Box Office Mojo. 21 March 2014.Archived from the original on 1 October 2014. Retrieved2 October 2014.
^abKilcooley-O'Halloran, Scarlett (15 April 2015)."Kate's Occasional Chaos".Vogue.Archived from the original on 25 June 2017. Retrieved29 October 2017.
^"Falling in Love Again".Elle:131–136. November 2004.
^Travis, Ben; Butcher, Sophie; De Semlyen, Nick; Dyer, James; Nugent, John; Godfrey, Alex; O'Hara, Helen (20 December 2022)."Empire's 50 Greatest Actors of All Time List, Revealed".Empire.Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved4 February 2023.
^abcReid, Vickie (15 January 1999)."Waving, not drowning".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved30 November 2009.
^Clark, John (17 April 1999)."Winslet Sets a New Course".Los Angeles Times.Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved3 November 2017.
^Picardie, Justine (November 2011). "Forever Chic".Harper's Bazaar. pp. 188–192.there's no way I'm going to allow my children to be fucked up because my marriages haven't worked out
^Dowd, Maureen (31 May 2021)."Kate Winslet Has No Filter".The New York Times.Archived from the original on 2 December 2024. Retrieved2 December 2024.He added 'Winslet' as one of his middle names, just simply because the children have Winslet. When we're all travelling together, to all have that name on the passport makes life easier.
^Holmes, Sally (26 June 2015)."Why Kate Winslet's Boobs Were Her Biggest Obstacle in 'A Little Chaos'".Elle.Archived from the original on 24 December 2016. Retrieved1 November 2017.She has the kind of personality that puts an entire room at ease, dropping F-bombs and self-deprecating remarks intermittently, while charming everyone with that buttery English accent
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