Kate Elizabeth Winslet, CBE
(born 5 October 1975), is an English actress and singer. She is the recipient
of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards and a Grammy
Award. She is the youngest person to acquire six Academy Award nominations, and
is one of the few actresses to win three of the four major American
entertainment awards (EGOT). In addition, she has won awards from the Screen
Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association among others, and an Honorary César Award in 2012.
Brought up in Berkshire,
Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British
television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for
which she received praise. She garnered recognition for her supporting role in
Sense and Sensibility (1995) before achieving global stardom with the epic
romance Titanic (1997), which was the highest-grossing film of all time at that
point. Winslet's performances in Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), and
Revolutionary Road (2008) continued to draw praise from film critics; her
performance in the last of these prompted the critic David Edelstein to describe
her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation".
She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader (2008)
and the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries for playing the title role
in Mildred Pierce (2011). Winslet's greatest commercial successes have been the
romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), the animated film Flushed Away (2006), the
science fiction film Divergent (2014) and its sequel, Insurgent (2015).
In addition to acting,
Winslet has narrated documentaries and children's books. She was awarded the
Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000 for narrating
Listen To the Storyteller. She has also provided her vocals to soundtracks of
her films, the most popular of which is the single "What If" from
Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001). Divorced from film directors Jim Threapleton
and Sam Mendes, Winslet is now married to businessman Ned Rocknroll.
Born Kate Elizabeth Winslet, 5 October 1975 (age 39), Reading,
Berkshire, England
Occupation Actress, singer
Years active 1991–present
Spouse(s) Jim Threapleton (m. 1998–2001)
Sam Mendes (m. 2003–11)
Ned Rocknroll (m. 2012)
Children 3
Early life
Born in Reading, Berkshire,
England, Kate Elizabeth Winslet is the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a
barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming pool contractor. She has two
sisters, Beth and Anna, and one brother, Joss Winslet.
Winslet began studying drama
at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent
school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl. At the age of 12,
Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope
for Sugar Puffs cereal. Pope said her naturalism was "there from the
start". During her teenage years, Winslet appeared in more than 20 stage
productions of London-based Starmaker school of drama including lead parts such
as Miss Hannigan in Annie, Mother Wolf in The Jungle Book and Lena Marelli in
Bugsy Malone.
Career
1991–1997
Winslet made her television
debut, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial
Dark Season. This role was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV film
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back,and an episode of the
medical drama Casualty in 1993.
In 1992, Winslet attended a
casting call for Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures in London. Winslet
auditioned for the role of Juliet Hulme, a teenager who assists in the murder
of the mother of her best friend, Pauline Parker (played by Melanie Lynskey).
The film included Winslet's singing debut, and her a cappella version of
"Sono Andati", an aria from La Bohème, was featured on the film's
soundtrack. The film was released to favourable reviews in 1994 and won Jackson
and partner Fran Walsh a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original
Screenplay. Winslet was awarded an Empire Award and a London Film Critics'
Circle Award for British Actress of the Year for her performance. The
Washington Post writer Desson Thomson commented: "As Juliet, Winslet is a
bright-eyed ball of fire, lighting up every scene she’s in. She's offset
perfectly by Lynskey, whose quietly smoldering Pauline completes the delicate,
dangerous partnership." The same year, from 7 April to 7 May, she appeared
as Geraldine Barclay in What the Butler Saw for The Royal Exchange Theatre. For
her performance in the play, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by
Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards.
The following year, Winslet
auditioned for the role of Lucy Steele in the adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense
and Sensibility, featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. She was
instead cast in the second leading role of Marianne Dashwood. Director Ang Lee
admitted he was initially worried about the way Winslet had attacked her role
in Heavenly Creatures and thus required her to exercise t'ai chi, read Austen-era
Gothic novels and poetry, and work with a piano teacher to fit the grace of the
role. Budgeted at US$16.5 million ($25.5 million in current year dollars) the
film became a financial and critical success, resulting in a worldwide box
office total of $135 million ($208.9 million) and various awards for Winslet,
winning her both a BAFTA and a Screen Actors' Guild Award, and nominations for
both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
In 1996, Winslet starred in
both Jude and Hamlet. In Michael Winterbottom's Jude, based on the Victorian
novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, she played Sue Bridehead, a young woman
with suffragette leanings who falls in love with her cousin, played by
Christopher Eccleston. Acclaimed among critics, it was not a success at the box
office, barely grossing $2 million ($3 million) worldwide. Richard Corliss of
Time magazine said "Winslet is worthy of [...] the camera's scrupulous
adoration. She's perfect, a modernist ahead of her time [...] and Jude is a handsome
showcase for her gifts." Winslet played Ophelia, Hamlet's drowned lover,
in Kenneth Branagh's all star-cast film version of William Shakespeare's
Hamlet. The film garnered largely positive reviews and earned Winslet her
second Empire Award.
Titanic
In September 1996, Winslet
began filming James Cameron's Titanic (1997), alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Claire Danes, and Gabrielle Anwar had been considered for the
role; when they turned it down, Winslet campaigned heavily for it. She sent
Cameron daily notes from England, and thanks to assistance from her agent Hylda
Queally, Cameron eventually invited her to Hollywood for auditions. Cameron
described the character as "an Audrey Hepburn type" and was initially
uncertain about casting Winslet even after her screen test impressed him. After
she screen tested with DiCaprio, Winslet was so thoroughly impressed with him,
that she whispered to Cameron, "He's great. Even if you don't pick me,
pick him." Winslet sent Cameron a single rose with a card signed
"From Your Rose" and lobbied him by phone. "You don't
understand!" she pleaded one day when she reached him by mobile phone in
his Humvee. "I am Rose! I don't know why you're even seeing anyone
else!" Her persistence, as well as her talent, eventually convinced him to
cast her in the role.
Cast as the sensitive
seventeen-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater, a fictional first-class socialite who
survives the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, Winslet's experience was
emotionally demanding. "Titanic was totally different and nothing could
have prepared me for it. ... We were really scared about the whole adventure.
... Jim [Cameron] is a perfectionist, a real genius at making movies. But there
was all this bad press before it came out, and that was really upsetting."
Against expectations, the film went on to become the highest-grossing film of
all time, grossing more than $2,186,800,000 in box-office receipts worldwide,
and transformed Winslet into a commercial movie star. Subsequently, she was
nominated for most of the high-profile awards, winning a European Film Award.
1998–2003
Hideous Kinky, a low-budget
romance film shot before the release of Titanic, was Winslet's sole film of
1998. Winslet had rejected offers to play the leading roles in Shakespeare in
Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in favour of the role of a young
English mother named Julia who moves with her daughters from London to Morocco
hoping to start a new life. The film garnered generally mixed reviews and
received only limited distribution, resulting in a worldwide gross of $5
million ($7.1 million). The next film Winslet starred in was Holy Smoke!
(1999), featuring Harvey Keitel. Feeling pressured, Winslet has said she
"never saw Titanic as a springboard for bigger films or bigger pay
cheques", knowing that "it could have been that, but would have
destroyed [her]." That same year she voiced Brigid in the computer
animated film Faeries.
Winslet appeared in the
period piece Quills with Geoffrey Rush and Joaquin Phoenix, released in 2000
and inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade. The actress served as
somewhat of a "patron saint" of the film for being the first big name
to back it, accepting the role of a chambermaid in the asylum and the courier
of the Marquis' manuscripts to the underground publishers. Well received by
critics, the film garnered numerous accolades for Winslet, including
nominations for SAG and Satellite Awards. The film was a modest arthouse
success, averaging $27,709 ($37,947) per screen its debut weekend, and
eventually grossing $18 million ($24.7 million) internationally.
In 2001's Enigma, Winslet
played a young woman who finds herself falling for a brilliant young World War
II code breaker, played by Dougray Scott. It was her first war film, and
Winslet regarded "making Enigma a brilliant experience" as she was
five months pregnant at the time of the shoot, forcing some tricky camera work
from the director Michael Apted. Generally well-received, Winslet was awarded a
British Independent Film Award for her performance, and A. O. Scott of The New
York Times described Winslet as "more crush-worthy than ever." In the
same year she appeared in Richard Eyre's critically acclaimed film Iris,
portraying novelist Iris Murdoch. Winslet shared her role with Judi Dench, with
both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life.
Subsequently, each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following
year, earning Winslet her third nomination. Also in 2001, she voiced the
character Belle in the animated motion picture Christmas Carol: The Movie,
based on the Charles Dickens classic novel. For the film, Winslet recorded the
song "What If", which was released in November 2001 as a single with
proceeds donated to two of Winslet's favourite charities, the N.S.P.C.C. and
the Sargeant Cancer Foundation for Children. A Europe-wide top ten hit, it reached
number one in Austria, Belgium and Ireland, number six on the UK Singles Chart,
and won the 2002 OGAE Song Contest.
Her next film role was in
the 2003 drama The Life of David Gale, in which she played an ambitious
journalist who interviews a death-sentenced professor, played by Kevin Spacey,
in his final weeks before execution. The film underperformed at international
box offices, garnering only half of its $50,000,000 budget, and generating
mostly critical reviews, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it a
"silly movie."
2004–2006
Following The Life of David
Gale, Winslet appeared with Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(2004), a neosurrealistic indie-drama by French director Michel Gondry. In the
film, she played the role of Clementine Kruczynski, a chatty, spontaneous and
somewhat neurotic woman, who decides to have all memories of her ex-boyfriend
erased from her mind. The role was a departure from her previous roles, with
Winslet revealing in an interview with Variety that she was initially upended
about her casting in the film: "This was not the type of thing I was being
offered [...] I was just thrilled that there was something he had seen in me,
in spite of the corsets, that he thought was going to work for
Clementine." The film was a critical and financial success. Winslet
received rave reviews for her Academy Award-nominated performance, which Peter
Travers of Rolling Stone described as "electrifying and bruisingly
vulnerable."
Her final film in 2004 was
Finding Neverland. The story of the production focused on Scottish writer J.M.
Barrie (Johnny Depp) and his platonic relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies
(Winslet), whose sons inspired him to pen the classic play Peter Pan, or The
Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. During promotion of the film, Winslet noted of her
portrayal "It was very important for me in playing Sylvia that I was
already a mother myself, because I don’t think I could have played that part if
I didn’t know what it felt like to be a parent and have those responsibilities
and that amount of love that you give to a child [...] and I've always got a
baby somewhere, or both of them, all over my face." The film received
favourable reviews and proved to be an international success, becoming
Winslet's highest-grossing film since Titanic with a total of $118 million
worldwide.
In 2005, Winslet appeared in
an episode of the BBC/HBO comedy series Extras by Ricky Gervais and Stephen
Merchant as a satirical version of herself. While dressed as a nun, she was
portrayed giving phone sex tips to the romantically challenged character of
Maggie. Her performance in the episode led to her first nomination for an Emmy
Award. In Romance & Cigarettes (2005), a musical romantic comedy written
and directed by John Turturro, she played the character Tula, described by
Winslet as "a slut, someone who’s essentially foulmouthed and has bad
manners and really doesn’t know how to dress." Hand-picked by Turturro,
who was impressed with her display of dancing ability in Holy Smoke!, Winslet
was praised for her performance, which included her interpretation of Connie
Francis's "Scapricciatiello (Do You Love Me Like You Kiss Me)". Derek
Elley of Variety wrote: "Onscreen less, but blessed with the showiest
role, filthiest one-liners, [and] a perfect Lancashire accent that's comical
enough in the Gotham setting Winslet throws herself into the role with an
infectious gusto."
After declining an
invitation to appear in Woody Allen's film Match Point (2005), Winslet stated
that she wanted to be able to spend more time with her children. She began 2006
with All the King's Men, featuring Sean Penn and Jude Law. Winslet played the
role of Anne Stanton, the childhood sweetheart of Jack Burden (Law). The film
was critically and financially unsuccessful. Todd McCarthy of Variety summed it
up as "overstuffed and fatally miscast [...] Absent any point of
engagement to become involved in the characters, the film feels stillborn and
is unlikely to stir public excitement, even in an election year."
Winslet fared far better
when she co-starred in Todd Field's Little Children, playing Sarah Pierce, a
bored housewife who has a torrid affair with a married neighbour, played by
Patrick Wilson. Both her performance and the film received rave reviews; A.O.
Scott of The New York Times wrote: "In too many recent movies intelligence
is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality—even more than its considerable
beauty—that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. The result is a film
that is challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about. Ms. Winslet,
as fine an actress as any working in movies today, registers every flicker of
Sarah’s pride, self-doubt and desire, inspiring a mixture of recognition, pity
and concern that amounts, by the end of the movie, to something like love. That
Ms. Winslet is so lovable makes the deficit of love in Sarah’s life all the
more painful." For her work in the film, she was honoured with a Britannia
Award for British Artist of the Year from BAFTA/LA, a Los Angeles-based
offshoot of the BAFTA Awards, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Actress, and at 31, became the youngest actress to ever garner five Oscar
nominations.
She followed Little Children
with a role in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy The Holiday, also starring Cameron
Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black. In it she played Iris, a British woman who
temporarily exchanges homes with an American woman (Diaz). Released to a mixed
reception by critics, the film became Winslet's biggest commercial success in
nine years, grossing more than $205 million worldwide. Also in 2006, Winslet
provided her voice for several smaller projects. In the CG-animated Flushed
Away, she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Roddy (Hugh Jackman) escape
from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. A
critical and commercial success, the film collected $177,665,672 at
international box offices.
2007–2011
In 2007, Winslet reunited
with Leonardo DiCaprio to film Revolutionary Road (2008), directed by her
husband at the time, Sam Mendes. Winslet had suggested that both should work
with her on a film adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard
Yates after reading the script by Justin Haythe. Resulting in both "a
blessing and an added pressure" on-set, the reunion was her first
experience working with Mendes. Portraying a couple in a failing marriage in
the 1950s, DiCaprio and Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the
suburbs to prepare themselves for the film, which earned them favourable
reviews. In his review of the film, David Edelstein of New York magazine stated
that "[t]here isn’t a banal moment in Winslet’s performance—not a gesture,
not a word. Is Winslet now the best English-speaking film actress of her
generation? I think so." Winslet was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best
Actress for her performance, her seventh nomination from the Golden Globes.
Also released in late 2008,
the film competed against Winslet's other project, a film adaptation of
Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry and
featuring Ralph Fiennes and David Kross in supporting roles. Originally the
first choice for her role, she was initially not able to take on the role due
to a scheduling conflict with Revolutionary Road, and Nicole Kidman replaced
her. A month after filming began, however, Kidman left the film due to her
pregnancy before filming of her had begun, enabling Winslet to rejoin the film.
Employing a German accent, Winslet portrayed a former Nazi concentration camp
guard who has an affair with a teenager (Kross) who, as an adult, witnesses her
war crimes trial. She later said the role was difficult for her, as she was
naturally unable "to sympathise with an SS guard." Because the film
required full frontal nudity, a merkin was made for her. In an interview for
Allure she related how she refused to use it: "Guys, I am going to have to
draw the line at a pubic wig,..." While the film garnered mixed reviews in
general, Winslet received favourable reviews for her performance. The following
year, she earned her sixth Academy Award nomination and went on to win the Best
Actress award, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors' Guild Award
for Outstanding Supporting Actress, and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting
Actress.
In 2011, Winslet headlined
in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, a small screen adaptation of James M.
Cain's 1941 novel of the same name, directed by Todd Haynes. Co-starring Guy
Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood, she portrayed a self-sacrificing mother during the
Great Depression who finds herself separated from her husband and falling in
love with a new man, all the while trying to earn her narcissistic daughter's
love and respect. Broadcast to moderate ratings, the five-part series earned
generally favourable reviews, with Salon.com calling it a "quiet,
heartbreaking masterpiece". Winslet won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe
Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film, and a Screen Actors
Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or
Television Movie for her performance.
Also in 2011, Winslet
appeared in Steven Soderbergh's disaster film Contagion, featuring an ensemble
cast consisting of Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law.
The thriller follows the rapid progress of a lethal indirect contact
transmission virus that kills within days. Winslet portrayed an Epidemic Intelligence
Service officer who becomes infected with the disease over the course of her
investigation. Winslet's other 2011 film project, Roman Polanski's Carnage,
premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival. An adaptation of the play God of
Carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza, the black comedy follows two sets of
parents who meet up to talk after their children have been in a fight. Jodie
Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz co-starred in the film, which
critics felt was not as "compelling on the screen as it was on the
stage", but made "up for its flaws with Polanski's smooth direction
and assured performances from Winslet and Foster." For her performance
Winslet received a second nomination by the Hollywood Foreign Press that year.
2012–present
In 2012, Winslet's audiobook
performance of Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin was released at Audible.com.
AudioFile 's review said, "Kate Winslet reads as though she is relishing
every morsel of the drama [...] She clearly loves the book, and her pleasure in
the text is infectious. She grabs listeners and doesn’t let go." Her first
2013 release was Movie 43, an independent anthology black comedy film that
featured 14 different storylines, with each segment having a different
director. Winslet's segment, titled The Catch, was directed by Peter Farrelly
and revolves around a single businesswoman who goes on a blind date with the
city's most eligible bachelor, played by Hugh Jackman, only to be shocked when
he removes his scarf, revealing a pair of testicles dangling from his neck.
This marked Winslet's second collaboration with Jackman, following the 2006
animated film Flushed Away. The compilation film was universally panned by
critics, with the Chicago Sun-Times calling it "the Citizen Kane of
awful".
In 2013, Winslet appeared in
Jason Reitman's big screen adaptation of Joyce Maynard's 2009 novel Labor Day,
also starring Josh Brolin, which she declared as "a very romantic movie,
though a bizarre one." While the film was met with a generally mixed
reception from critics, Winslet received favorable reviews for her portrayal of
Adele, a mentally fragile, repressed single mom of a 13-year-old son who gives
shelter to an escaped prisoner during a long summer week-end. For her
performance, Winslet earned her tenth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress
in a Motion Picture – Drama. Winslet then appeared in Divergent (2014), Neil
Burger's film adaptation of the 2011 young adult novel by Veronica Roth. She
appeared as erudite leader Jeanine Matthews, whom she compared to
"Hitler" and on playing the antagonist first time, Winslet said,
"The idea went through my head that I have never played a baddie before, I
was almost kind of surprised." Her performance met with positive response
from critics; Screendaily thought that her performance was
"understated", and Indiewire noted that she was "pure poison as
Jeanine Matthews." The film grossed US$288.7 million worldwide.
In late 2014, Winslet
appeared alongside Matthias Schoenaerts in Alan Rickman's period drama A Little
Chaos about rival landscape gardeners commissioned by Louis XIV to create a
fountain at Versailles. Despite receiving little praise from critics, Winslet's
performance of assistant designer Sabine de Barra earned positive reviews. The
Guardian noted that "Winslet manages emotional honesty within
anachronistic confines," and Vanity Fair said, "She glows with
ambition and ache, playing a woman with a tragic past seeking refuge in the
meticulousness and inventiveness of her work." The same year, she also
narrated Roald Dahl's children's novel Matilda, for which AudioFile in its
review said, "She (Winslet) saves her panache for her characterizations.
While Winslet’s Matilda is modestly soft-spoken, she scales her vocal register
as the ranting Wormwood parents, booms as Miss Trunchbull, and breathily voices
the adored Miss Honey." She won the Odyssey Award for her performance.
Winslet started 2015 by
reprising her role of Jeanine Matthews in the second installment of the
Divergent trilogy, entitled The Divergent Series: Insurgent, making it the
first sequel she has ever appeared in. Forbes described her performance as a
"murderous tyrant" while TheWrap said the film "Perks up"
during her scenes. The film grossed US$274.5 million worldwide.
As of April 2015, Winslet
has various film projects in different states of production. She has completed
John Hillcoat's crime-thriller Triple Nine, in which she appears as a
Russian-Israeli mafia moll, described by Hillcoat as "a really glamorous,
nasty piece of work", Jocelyn Moorhouse's The Dressmaker based on the
novel of same name, in which she stars as a femme fatale in the title role, and
Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs alongside Michael Fassbender. In addition, she is set
to appear in Jesse Peretz's comedy-drama Juliet, Naked, based on Nick Hornby's
2009 novel of the same name.
Personal life
Relationships and children
While on the set of the 1991
TV series Dark Season, Winslet met actor and writer Stephen Tredre, with whom
she had a four-and-a-half-year relationship. Winslet and Tredre remained close
after their separation in 1995. He died of bone cancer during the opening week
of Titanic, causing her to miss the film's Los Angeles premiere to attend his
funeral in London.
On 22 November 1998, Winslet
married film director Jim Threapleton, whom she met while on the set of Hideous
Kinky in 1997. They have a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, who was born in
October 2000 in London. Winslet and Threapleton divorced on 13 December 2001.
Following her separation
from Threapleton, Winslet began a relationship with director Sam Mendes in
2001, and she married him on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla. Their son,
Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City.
Winslet and Mendes announced their separation in March 2010, and divorced in
2011.
In August 2011, a fire broke
out at a residence in which Winslet, her children, and her then-boyfriend,
model Louis Dowler, were staying on Necker Island, the private resort island of
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. The fire caused significant damage to the
home, but no injuries.
During the same August 2011
holiday on Necker Island, Winslet met fellow guest Ned Rocknroll, and they soon
began dating. Rocknroll was born Ned Abel Smith, but later legally changed his
name. He is a nephew of Richard Branson and works for Virgin Galactic, the
space-travel division of his uncle's business. Rocknroll was previously married
to Eliza Pearson, daughter of Viscount Cowdray. Winslet and Rocknroll became
engaged in the summer of 2012. It was announced in September 2012 that the
couple had relocated from New York to live in the UK permanently, moving into a
heritage home in South Downs National Park in West Sussex. Winslet and Rocknroll
married in a private ceremony in New York in December 2012. The couple's son,
Bear Blaze Winslet, was born in the County of Sussex, England, on 7 December
2013.
Philanthropic work,
experiences and interests
Winslet's weight
fluctuations over the years have been well documented by the media. She has
been outspoken about her refusal to allow Hollywood to dictate her weight. In
February 2003, the British edition of GQ magazine published photographs of
Winslet that had been digitally altered to make her look dramatically thinner.
Winslet issued a statement that the alterations were made without her consent,
saying, "I just didn't want people to think I was a hypocrite and that I'd
suddenly lost 30 lbs or whatever". GQ subsequently issued an apology. In
2007, she won a libel suit against Grazia magazine after it claimed that she
had visited a diet doctor. She won another libel suit in 2009 against the
British tabloid The Daily Mail after it printed that she had lied about her
exercise regimen. Winslet stated that she had requested an apology to
demonstrate her commitment to the views that she has always expressed regarding
women's body issues, namely that women should accept their appearance with
pride.
In 2010, Winslet narrated a
video for PETA, encouraging chefs to remove foie gras from their menus and
asking consumers to boycott restaurants that serve it. Winslet is a vegetarian.
Winslet narrated the
documentary A Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism, which focused on Keli
Thorsteinsson, who has autism, and his mother, Margret Ericsdottir. The
documentary was generally released on 24 September 2010, after airing on HBO in
April of the same year. Her involvement in the documentary led to her founding
the non-profit organisation, the Golden Hat Foundation, whose mission is to
eliminate barriers for people living with autism. She also wrote a book titled
"The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism", which contains personal
statements and self-portraits from number of celebrities including Leonardo
DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine. In 2011, Winslet received the Yo
Dona award for Best Humanitarian Work for her work with the Golden Hat.
Winslet is the face of
cosmetic and perfume house Lancôme and in 2010, she joined Longines as their
"Ambassador of Elegance". She has appeared in number of advertising
campaigns of both brands. In 2011, Lancôme partner up with Winslet's Golden Hat
Foundation, to raise funds for the organization to help people with autism.
Winslet supports ageing
naturally and has always spoken openly against Plastic Surgery and botox. In
2015, during an interview with Harper’s Bazaar she said "Life is just too
short to be spending time focusing on things like that, I want to keep my
health and my sanity and be well fed and happy."
Movies:
