Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet CBE (/ˈwɪnzlət/;[2] born 5 October 1975) is an English actress.[3] Known for her roles as headstrong and complicated women in independent films, particularly period dramas, she has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, five BAFTA Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. Time magazine named Winslet one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009 and 2021. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2012.
Kate Winslet
Winslet studied drama at the Redroofs Theatre School. Her first screen appearance, at age 15, was in the British television series Dark Season (1991). She made her film debut playing a teenage murderess in Heavenly Creatures (1994), and went on to win a BAFTA Award for playing Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (1995). Global stardom followed with her leading role in James Cameron's epic romance Titanic (1997), which was the highest-grossing film at the time. Winslet then eschewed parts in blockbusters in favour of critically acclaimed period pieces, including Quills (2000) and Iris (2001).
The science fiction romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), in which Winslet was cast against type in a contemporary setting, proved to be a turning point in her career, and she gained further recognition for her performances in Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), Revolutionary Road (2008), and The Reader (2008). For playing a former Nazi camp guard in the latter, she won the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress. Winslet's portrayal of Joanna Hoffman in the biopic Steve Jobs (2015) won her another BAFTA Award, and she received two Primetime Emmy Awards for her performances in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011) and Mare of Easttown (2021). In 2022, she produced and starred in the single drama "I Am Ruth", winning two BAFTA TV Awards, and played a supporting role through motion capture in Cameron's top-grossing science fiction film Avatar: The Way of Water.
For her narration of a short story in the audiobook Listen to the Storyteller (1999), Winslet won a Grammy Award. She performed the song "What If" for the soundtrack of her film, Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001). A co-founder of the charity Golden Hat Foundation, which aims to create autism awareness, Winslet has also written a book on the topic. Divorced from film directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes, Winslet has been married to businessman Edward Abel Smith[a] since 2012. She has a child from each marriage, including actress Mia Threapleton.
Career
Early work and breakthrough (1994–1996)
Winslet was among 175 women to audition for Peter Jackson's psychological drama Heavenly 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 the Parker–Hulme murder case of 1954, in which Winslet played Juliet Hulme, a teenager who assists her friend, Pauline Parker (played by Melanie 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.[9] 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 for The 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, in the Royal Exchange Theatre production of Joe Orton's farce What the Butler Saw.[35]
While promoting Heavenly Creatures in Los Angeles, Winslet auditioned for the minor part of Lucy Steele for a 1995 film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility, written by and starring Emma Thompson. Impressed by her reading, Thompson cast her in the much larger part of the recklessly romantic teenager Marianne Dashwood.[36] The director Ang Lee wanted Winslet to play the part with grace and restraint—aspects that he felt were missing from her performance in Heavenly Creatures—and thus asked her to practise tai chi, read gothic literature, and learn to play the piano.[36] David Parkinson of Radio Times considered Winslet to be a standout among the cast, and Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle took note of how well she had portrayed her character's growth and maturity.[37][38] The film grossed over $134 million worldwide.[39] She won the Screen Actors Guild and British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actress, and received nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award in the same category.[40] Also in 1995, Winslet featured in the poorly received Disney film A Kid in King Arthur's Court.[41]
Winslet had roles in two period dramas of 1996—Jude and Hamlet. As with Heavenly Creatures, her roles in these films were those of women with a "mad edge".[30] In Michael Winterbottom's Jude, based on the novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, she played Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings who falls in love with her cousin, Jude (played by Christopher Eccleston). The critic Roger 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 for Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, she was cast for the part of Ophelia, the doomed lover of the title character, in Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet.[36] Winslet, aged 20, was intimidated by the experience of performing Shakespeare with such established actors as Branagh and Julie Christie, saying the job required a level of intellect that she thought she did not possess.[30] Mike Jeffries of Empire believed that she had played the part "well beyond her years".[43] Despite the acclaim, Jude and Hamlet earned little at the box office.[44][45]
Other ventures
Winslet has lent her support to several charities and causes, along with financial donations and items for auctions.[240][76][241] In 2006, she became a patron of a Gloucester-based charity, the Family Haven, which provides counselling services to vulnerable families.[242] The same year, hand-made envelopes designed by Winslet were auctioned for the "Pushing the Envelope" campaign created by the National Literacy Trust.[243] Winslet was one of the celebrities to participate in a 2007 auction to raise funds for the Afghanistan Relief Organization.[244] In 2009, she contributed to the Butterfly Book, a compilation of doodles made by several celebrities, to raise money for leukaemia research.[245] Also in 2009, Winslet participated in a joint effort with Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, James Cameron, and Celine Dion, financially to help Millvina Dean, the then last-living survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. The donation amounted to $30,000 which was used to pay the fees of the nursing home in the United Kingdom where Dean was living.[246]
In 2009, Winslet narrated the English version of an Icelandic documentary named A Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism, about Margret Ericsdottir, whose child Keli Thorsteinsson has non-verbal autism. Inspired by the story, she teamed with Ericsdottir in 2010 to form an NGO named the Golden Hat Foundation.[247] The organisation aims to create autism awareness and was named after a poem written by Thorsteinsson.[248][249] As the ambassador for the luxury brands Lancôme and Longines, 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.[247][250][251]
In 2012, Winslet wrote a book about autism, entitled The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism, which was published by Simon & Schuster. It contains correspondence between Winslet and Ericsdottir, personal statements from various celebrities, and contributions from Thorsteinsson.[252] A reviewer for Publishers Weekly praised the book for its "warmth and sincerity".[253] The United Nations featured the book during a ceremony on the World Autism Awareness Day of 2012.[254] For her work with the Golden Hat Foundation, Winslet received Spain's Yo Dona award for Best Humanitarian Work.[255]
Winslet narrated a video for PETA in 2010 that showed animal cruelty in the production of foie gras.[256] She encouraged chefs to remove the item from their menu and urged consumers to boycott it.[257] In 2015, she lent her support to the UNICEF campaign World's Largest Lesson, which creates awareness among children about sustainable development and global citizenship.[258] Teased as a child for her weight, Winslet takes a stand against body-shaming and bullying.[259] She narrated an Australian animated short film named Daisy Chain (2015), about a victim of cyberbullying.[260] In 2017, Winslet teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental foundation for a fundraiser on global warming.[261] Also that year, she and DiCaprio auctioned a private dinner with themselves to raise money for a British woman's cancer treatment.[262] Winslet teamed with Lancôme and the National Literacy Trust in 2018 to launch a programme that aims to educate underprivileged women in the UK.[263] In 2020, Winslet read a bedtime story as part of Save with Stories to raise funds for Save the Children's Emergency Coronavirus Appeal.[264] In 2021, Winslet commented on homophobia 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".[265]
Prolific in film since 1994, Winslet's most acclaimed and highest-grossing films, according to the online portal Box Office Mojo and the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include Heavenly Creatures (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Hamlet (1996), Titanic (1997), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), The Holiday (2006), Contagion (2011), Divergent (2014), Insurgent (2015), Steve Jobs (2015), and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).[44][45] Her television projects include the miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011) and Mare of Easttown (2021).[123][185]
Winslet has been recognised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following performances:[288]
Winslet has won five BAFTA Awards: Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Reader (2008); Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Steve Jobs (2016); Best Leading Actress and Best Single Drama for I Am Ruth.[288] She has also won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Mildred Pierce (2011), and Mare of Easttown (2021) as well as the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for narrating the children's audiobook Listen to the Storyteller (1999).[65][97] Winslet is the recipient of five Golden Globe Awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, winning Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for The Reader and Steve Jobs, Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for Revolutionary Road, and Best Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture – Television for Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown.[289] She is among the few actresses to have won three of the four major American entertainment awards.[290][291]