Kate Winslet has spoken out about the body shaming she experienced as a young girl. The Oscar-winning actress said her drama teacher told her she would have to “settle for the fat girl parts.”
Winslet, 50, appeared on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs to promote her directorial debut Goodbye June.
“I was a little bit stocky, when I did start taking it much more seriously and got a child agent I really remember vividly a drama teacher… and she said to me, ‘Well, darling, you’ll have a career if you’re ready to settle for the fat girl parts,’” the actress recalled.
“Look at me now,” she continued. “It’s appalling the things people say to children.”
“I learned to have a pretty thick skin pretty early on,” she added.
Winslet has been open about her journey to stardom and the many negative comments women in the industry hear about their appearance. Earlier in December, she slammed the popularity of weight-loss drugs and fillers, saying in an interview with The Times, “If a person’s self-esteem is so bound up in how they look it’s frightening.” Last year, she said she was subjected to “horrific” harassment from the press after rising to fame in the wake of the Titanic.
Her directorial debut was written by her son, Joe Anders. The Christmas drama revolves around a family confronting their grief as their mother is dying.
“It’s a story about family. It’s not a story about a person who dies, and it is cathartic,” Winslet said in an interview with Netflix. “It was up to me to get in there and bring that off the page.”
