Kate Winslet is currently promoting her directorial debut, Goodbye June. It was written by her son Joe, who has adopted the professional name Joe Anders (his birth name is Joe Mendes). I learned something new in this Times interview with Kate – apparently, her current husband no longer goes by Ned Rocknroll. He’s back to his birth name, Edward Smith. We’re no longer supposed to call him Ned Rocknroll?? I’m honestly shocked that they’re still together, but there you go. I haven’t covered a Winslet interview in a few years and I always forget how judgmental she is and how much sh-t she talks. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
How her parents reacted to her fame: “Fascinated, proud, confused? It is odd to see your sister on the front of a magazine. But also they were worried, because the media was vile, singling me out for relentless bullying. I wasn’t ready to be a famous actress. I was so young, but I felt so invaded. Nothing was nice. People climbed into my garden. I couldn’t go to a shop. I was followed when I had a baby in the back of the car on my way to the paediatrician. It is abnormal and, to my dad, I was still that little girl he helped clean out the rabbit hutch every Saturday afternoon.”
She wants women to be happy with how they look naturally: “But I feel like nobody cares any more. No one’s listening because they’ve become obsessed with chasing an idea of perfection to get more likes on Instagram. It upsets me so much.”
How women are all getting so much done, they look the same: “Oh, it’s terrifying. I think no, not you! Why? It is devastating. If a person’s self-esteem is so bound up in how they look it’s frightening. And it’s puzzling because I have moments when I think it’s better, when I look at actresses at events dressed how they want, whichever shape — but then so many people are on weight-loss drugs. It’s so varied. Some are making choices to be themselves, others do everything they can to not be themselves. And do they know what they are putting in? The disregard for one’s health is terrifying. It bothers me now more than ever. It is f***ing chaos out there.”
She’s mad about all of the cosmetic work: Yet what really upsets Winslet is not “all the f***ing actresses” but the rest of the world, “people who save up for Botox or the sh=t they put in their lips”. She screws up her face, showing me lines to prove that she “hasn’t got anything in it”. She then squeezes the backs of her hands, making creases around her veins. “My favourite thing is when your hands get old,” she beams. “That’s life, in your hands. Some of the most beautiful women I know are over 70 and what upsets me is that young women have no concept of what being beautiful actually is.”
She blames social media: To illustrate her exasperation she mentions a young woman she saw on a BBC news article about a car crash. “She looked like a cartoon,” Winslet says, sighing. “You do not actually know what that person looks like — from the eyebrows to mouth to lashes to hair, that young woman is scared to be herself. What idea of perfection are people aspiring to? I blame social media and its effect on mental health.”
Her love of British culture: “I love British culture. How in moments of unbelievable tragedy there’s always someone asking if they can have a pint and a packet of pork scratchings.” Football, pubs, sandwiches, “crappy” hospital sofas, kind doctors — it flows with the rhythm of this country’s life as it celebrates the ending of a life. I suppose this film is our way of saying, ‘Make sure you’ve said everything you need to.’ Because this country is useless at dealing with grief. All we know is that someone dies and you bury them in a mahogany box or they’re cremated. There’s no sense of ceremony about seeing someone off. But some people just die. I know somebody who held her dying mother and screamed, ‘No, not now!’ I mean, hell.”
I have two simultaneous thoughts about Winslet’s comments about cosmetic work and women doing too much and looking unnatural. One, she’s right and it IS disturbing to see so many women, especially young women, feel like they need Botox and fillers and a face full of makeup just to exist in the world. Two, it’s a bit rich for Winslet to criticize women for not feeling like they’re “enough,” because that’s part of the societal pressure on women that everything they’re doing is wrong no matter what. My little aside is that about a decade ago, I theorized that Kate got some major face work which is why her eyes and eyebrows looked so “different” all of a sudden.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
