Take a moment to appreciate one of Britain’s biggest movie stars.
I was just thinking earlier about how some actors were hot ten years ago and seem difficult to trace nowadays. It takes real skill to stay at the top of the movie industry game but somehow the wonderful Kate Winslet has achieved this, sustainably now for over twenty years.
My English A-Level teacher advised me to watch a Jane Austin film back in 1996 starring the incredibly talented Emma Thompson, so I took my mum along and thought it would be handy for subject knowledge. Early on, a young Miss Dashwood (Kate) stepped onto the screen and the rest literally was history. She was a brilliant sidekick to Emma and made her mark as a slightly rebellious sister, who was chasing a dream.
I later saw her being interviewed by Gaby Roslin and learned that she had begun with Peter Jackson in ‘Heavenly Creatures,’ a small New Zealand movie which had taken her away from her beginning in teen drama TV programmes. Excelling in ‘Jude’ and Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Hamlet,’ she chased a famous movie maker for a role in a movie which was based upon the doomed Titanic vessel. This job captured our imaginations and took Kate warmly towards a huge worldwide fan base. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until it was tipped by the same director’s next outing – Avatar.
Having already been nominated for an Oscar in Sense and Sensibility, she went on to earn one as Best Actress in the beautifully shot story of a World War Two German prison camp warden who could not read. Her character had an affair with a young guy who went on to study law and discover that she was to be imprisoned for a crime that she had not committed.
Kate continued to show her diversity in roles such as ‘Romance and Cigarettes,’ and with the cheekily rebellious Clementine who shared the screen with Jim Carrey in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.’ Her recurring role in the Young Adult genre series ‘Divergent’ gathered her a whole new audience and she explored being a gang leader as well as that stable ground for British actresses, the Rom-Com with her recent venture alongside Iris Elba in, ‘The Mountain Between Us,’
Cleverly, she took some time to make a five part mini-series for HBO known as ‘Mildred Pierce,’ about a 1920s American woman dealing with divorce and striving to open her own eatery, whilst balancing life as the single mother of two children. This was stunning in its backdrops and involved encounters with Guy Pearce of 1980s Neighbours notoriety.
It is funny that she is now involved in the newest Avatar movie which brings her back to her beloved director, James Cameron. I always love the choices that she makes and look forward to seeing what she decides to do next. This woman is extremely talented and has become an English Rose who represents us around the world. ‘Rose’ from titanic is etched into our heads, but we also respect her many other film roles which have made her career one of such interest.
