Kate Winslet says young women are so worried about how they look that they no longer understand “what beauty actually is.”
In an interview with the Sunday Times, the Oscar-winning actress, who is making her directorial debut at the age of 50, slammed the widespread use of weight loss drugs and fillers and blamed social media for distorting our body image.
“It is devastating. If a person’s self-esteem is so bound up in how they look it’s frightening,” she said.
“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.”
“And do they know what they are putting in? The disregard for one’s health is terrifying,” she added. “It bothers me now more than ever. It is f---ing chaos out there.”
Winslet called such decisions “terrifying,” slamming the state of beauty and wellness culture and ascribing the blame to “social media and its effect on mental health.” In the quest “to get more likes on Instagram”, she said, women have become obsessed with “chasing an idea of perfection.”
This isn’t the first time Winslet has addressed the pressure to look a certain way in Hollywood. In a 2024 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she revealed that she was asked to cover her “belly rolls” on the set of the 2023 film, Lee. She also experienced body shaming after becoming globally famous for Titanic, telling 60 Minutes that she confronted a reporter who asked questions about her weight. “I let them have it. I said, ‘I hope this haunts you,’” she said. “It was a great moment because it wasn’t just for me, it was for all those people who were subjected to that level of harassment.”
In her Sunday Times interview, Winslet questioned the “idea of perfection” that people are aspiring to, pointing out the lines on her face and the creases around her own hands. “That’s life, in your hands,” she said. “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.”
Winslet’s first film as director, Goodbye June, about four siblings negotiating the death of their mother, will be released in cinemas in the U.S. and U.K. on Dec. 12. The screenplay is by Joe Anders, Winslet’s 21-year-old son with the film director Sam Mendes, and was inspired by the death of her mother from ovarian cancer in 2017.
