Like many of her characters, Winslet considers herself a survivor: She survived two public divorces and survived the paparazzi, the packs of men who chased her in cars or staked out her house. (As a new mother, she would put on a hat and sunglasses, hand her baby over a wall to the next-door neighbor, climb the wall herself, then carry the baby through the backyard gate and onto a city bus, where, she swears , no one ever recognized her.)
It’s clear that some of the strengths Winslet projects – her never-stop-me attitude on set – is a defense she built up, out of necessity, years ago. “I was already experiencing tremendous amounts of judgment, persecution, all this intimidation,” he said. “People can call me fat. They can call me whatever they want. But they certainly can’t say I complained and behaved badly. Over my dead body.” The objection, especially for young women, was to risk a damaged reputation. “I wouldn’t know how to do that without people in power turning around and saying, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, you know , her again, that complainer,” Winslet said. “I’d rather suffer in silence than ever have this happen to me, even today.”
For Winslet, as a mother, it’s a particular horror that public body shaming once reserved for celebrities is now an ordeal any young woman with a phone can go through. For British television, she recently made an improvised film, “I Am Ruth,” with her daughter, Mia Threapleton, about a mother trying to understand her teenager’s unfolding. behind her closed bedroom door, in the privacy of her phone world, Threapleton’s character is bullied on social media in response to the revealing images she has posted of herself. With “I Am Ruth,” Winslet became an Everymom, opening her up to interactions of a different kind. “I’ll go to the grocery store, I’ll go anywhere, like I’m walking down the street, and people will stop me,” he said. A parking attendant put her hand on Winslet’s arm and began to cry. Winslet knew intuitively that it was “I Am Ruth.”
In her roles and in her life, Winslet has moved, for sure, from the role of inspiration to the role of fierce protector. Roybal described Winslet as an advocate for the “Mare of Easttown” crew, someone who would personally call the executives if she felt there was any disparity on their part. While filming “Mare,” Winslet sat in the trunk of a car where then-19-year-old Anguri Rice would film a kiss scene, so Winslet — a safe big sister figure — could personally relay notes from the director coming over a radio.
By the time she filmed “Mare,” Winslet had decades of emotional experiences she could easily access. “In the beginning,” he said, “I was digging around in my emotional toolbox and pulling out something that had actually happened to me. But that stopped working for me at some point. I do not know why. As you grow older, you live more life. you have more real-life experiences that you add to your emotional toolbox without realizing you’re doing it. And so sometimes, as you get older, honestly, the emotions are more accessible because they’re just simmering under the surface all the time — because there’s so much of it.” Winslet’s scripts are heavily covered with notes that lay out the emotional marks she should hit.