Oscar-Winning Actress Doesn’t Think Film Nudity Is A Big Deal
Titanic helped make Kate Winslet a household name, and since then, she has become an award-winning actor whose captivating performances always take us by surprise. Recently, though, she revealed her biggest surprise yet: that she doesn’t think nudity in film, including her own, is a very big deal. According to her, getting naked on camera is “not f***ing brave,” and she’s “not an ex-postmaster fighting for justice…I’m doing a job that matters to me.”
All For The Passion Of Acting
The context for Kate Winslet’s eyebrow-raising quote is that she got very nude for her upcoming film Lee and was annoyed when a crew member suggested she sit up straighter and suck in her stomach to look thinner on camera.
She told Time magazine that, annoyed, she asked the crew member “You think I’m not aware you can see that?” and that she was “all good” with how she looked in that scene. But the actor wanted to get out ahead of the narrative that showing her body made her fearless and brave, noting that she’s not a fighter, just someone giving a performance she is really passionate about.
Comfortable In Her Skin
Kate Winslet discussed the incident in greater detail in an earlier interview with Harper’s Bazaar U.K. Regarding showing her “belly rolls” on camera, the Titanic star said, “It was deliberate, you know?” This prompted a follow-up question about how Winslet feels about not looking perfect onscreen, and she revealed that “I take pride in it because it is my life on my face, and that matters” and that “it wouldn’t occur to me to cover that up.”
For Kate Winslet, learning how to forego the expectations of others is something she has been mastering most of her life. Back when Titanic became a global hit, the star was inexplicably the subject of countless negative headlines about her weight. Fortunately, the star has grown “more comfortable in myself as each year passes,” and that growing comfort has given her a wonderful gift: “It enables me to allow the opinions of others to evaporate.”
Really Getting Into Character
While Kate Winslet’s comments about nudity in film have surprised many of her fans, this isn’t the first time she has been very outspoken about the importance of making characters look less-than-perfect onscreen. In a previous interview with Indiewire, she discussed the importance of making her Mare of Easttown character “kind of disgusting” because “she’s a hot mess most of the time, she doesn’t give a sh*t what she looks like, she’s kind of stopped caring what people even think about her.”
To realistically portray this harried character, they wanted a character who “looked at herself in the mirror when she brushed her teeth in the morning and would not look in the mirror again [all day].” Regarding being too busy to really care about physical appearance, Kate Winslet noted, “That’s like most busy mothers I know — that’s like me.”
Fearless
All of these quotes from Kate Winslet make sense in context because they reveal her as a consummate actor…someone who believes that the function of her own appearance is merely to highlight the role she is playing. To this extent, she no longer worries about whether or not her onscreen appearance is flattering or not. Instead, she is fearless (we’re not saying “brave,” Kate, honest!) about digging into her flawed characters and making those flaws a humanizing part of one performance after another.
Kate Winslet Through The Years
Back when she appeared in James Cameron’s Titanic, Kate Winslet was already a seriously impressive actor, and her acting has only grown more sublime over time, eventually earning her a 2009 Best Actress Oscar for The Reader.
And it’s clear that part of why her acting got even more amazing is her willingness to fully dive into these characters and bring them to life, warts and all. Winslet may be one of the most authentic actors in the business, and if you want to see that authenticity on display, go check out Lee when it hits theaters September 27.
Source: Variety
