Our star-of-the-month for
is the indelible Kate Winslet who we will eternally remember for her role as Rose Dawson in James Cameron's 1997 epic Titanic - even though she is reported to have told a journalist last month: "I'm sick of being Rose. It's been a nearly a decade since we made the film. I want to be Kate".
Kate Winslet was 17 years old when she made her auspicious film debut as an extroverted but tubercular young girl who constructs a murderous fantasy world with her best friend in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994). Since then, her rise to stardom has been sure and steady, with acclaimed roles in films such as Sense and Sensibility and, of course, Titanic. Possessing a voluptuous, old-fashioned beauty that lends itself to costume dramas, Winslet has also been hailed for proudly standing in stark contrast to her more emaciated colleagues, proving that unconventional beauty and Hollywood success can indeed go hand in hand.
Following the overwhelming success of Titanic, the actress surprised many observers with her next project; rather than go for another high-profile film, she instead chose to star in Gillies MacKinnon's small independent Hideous Kinky (1998), which cast her as a young hippie who takes her children to Morocco in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Aside from the good reviews she got for her performance, she also got a husband out of the film: she ended up marrying James Threapleton, Hideous Kinky's third assistant director. Though the marriage wouldn't last long, romance returned to the young starlet's life when she announced that she was dating American Beauty director Sam Mendes in late 2001.
In 1999, she played another young woman in search of spiritual enlightenment, this time in Jane Campion's Holy Smoke. After following up the next year as a laundress who is the Marquis De Sade's sole link to getting his erotic works to the outside world in Quills, Winslet was once in the spotlight for her Oscar nominated performance as a youthful Iris Murdoch in director Richard Eyre's Iris. In 2003 Winslet could be found in yet another biopic, this time cast opposite Kevin Spacey in the film The Life of David Gale.
In 2005 Winslet was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; she eventually lost to Hilary Swank. This tied her for the record for most Academy Award nominations for an actress before the age of 30. This nomination was preceded by nominations for Best Supporting Actress in Sense and Sensibility and Iris. Winslet was also nominated for Best Actress in Titanic, but lost to Helen Hunt. She was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress in that film and in Finding Neverland, but lost to Imelda Staunton.
Date and Place of Birth: 5 October, 1975; Reading, Berkshire, England
First Movie:Heavenly Creatures (1994) - Juliet Marion Hulme
Weight: 54-59 kg (8½-9 stones)
Vital Statistics: 38-29-39
Favourite Films:Grease, Silence of the Lambs, The
Piano, Reservoir Dogs, Santa Claus: The Movie
Favourite Music: Classical, Gregorian chants, Indigo
Girls, The Verve, Oasis, Crowded House
Eye Colour: Green
Natural Hair Colour: Blonde
Quotations: This is what she had this to say about doing nude scenes: "I
like exposing myself. There's not an awful lot that embarrasses
me. I'm the kind of actress that absolutely believes in exposing
myself."
"I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to LA in hopes of getting small roles in American films."
Click on a photo below to see it in full size in a pop-up. Subsequent images will load into same window.
