Why Kate Winslet lobbying for ‘a bulgy bit of belly’ matters

Kate Winslet became a household name when the 1997 romantic epic Titanic smashed box office records.

She was Rose, the first-class passenger who fell for charming artist Jack, then saw him slip into the ocean after the ship sank. Since then, she has become one of the world’s leading actresses - racking up seven Oscar nominations and winning for The Reader (2008).

Keeping it real: Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown. The Oscar winner pushed to make all Mare’s flaws apparent.Credit: HBO

Who is she?

Winslet grew up in a family of actors in Reading, England, with two grandparents, her father and two sisters all in the trade. She acted at school then, at 16, appeared in the BBC sci-fi television series Dark Season.

Her first break came when she played one of two schoolgirl murderers with a fierce intensity in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994). While promoting it in Los Angeles, she was cast in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995), earning her first Oscar nomination at 20.

Despite her creamy complexion and ability to stylishly wear especially period costumes on screen, Winslet has long had a certain bolshiness about the roles she chooses - mixing dark and complex characters (in the likes of Holy Smoke (1999), Little Children (2006), Revolutionary Road (2008) and 2011’s Contagion) - with occasional lighter comedic parts such as Extras (2005) and The Holiday (2006).

Married to Edward Abel Smith, Richard Branson’s nephew and an executive at Virgin Galactic - her third marriage - she has three children aged 7 to 20.

Winslet’s latest role is damaged small-town detective Mare Sheehan in the seven-episode HBO drama series Mare of Easttown that has been screening on Binge and Foxtel. It saw her move into executive producing for the first time to take more control behind the scenes.

What happened this week?

The final episode of Mare of Easttown engaged viewers around the world and not just because of the final plot twist that solved the murder of a teenage mother.

Kate Winslet on the case in Mare of Easttown.Credit: HBO

It was also Winslet’s dressed-down portrayal of what she has called a “wildly flawed, messy, broken, fragmented, difficult woman”.

About as far from Hollywood glamour as you can get, Mare is a divorced grandmother grieving the death of her son and balancing testing relationships with her mother, daughter and former husband.

She wears unflattering jeans, flannel and cheap T-shirts, vapes, eats like a teenage boy, lumbers when chasing a suspect, has what she expects to be a one-night stand with someone she meets in a bar (even if it’s a dashing creative writing lecturer played by Guy Pearce) and pushes ethical boundaries in a custody case.

Winslet pushed to make all Mare’s flaws apparent. When director Craig Zobel assured her he would cut “a bulgy bit of belly” in a sex scene with Pearce, she told The New York Times her response was “don’t you dare!”

Winslet sent the show’s promotional poster back twice because it had been retouched to remove the lines around her eyes, dropped her character’s clothes in a rumpled pile on her trailer floor overnight, left her sunspots and skin imperfections on screen and rode an exercise bike to make her thighs look more muscular.

“I’m much more like Mare Sheehan than any of the characters I’ve ever played in any period films,” Winslet has said. “Newsflash: I don’t live like those people. I live much more like Mare.”

Why is it important?

Winslet is far from the first glamorous Hollywood actress to ditch any notion of vanity for a role.

Charlize Theron won an Oscar for transforming into a desperate sex worker and serial killer in Monster (2003). Cate Blanchett played a former heroin addict in Little Fish (2005). Nicole Kidman was a boozy corrupt cop with bad skin, mousy hair and dead eyes, in Destroyer (2018).

And gritty British and European women investigators have long solved crimes in such shows as Prime Suspect, The Bridge and The Killing.

But Winslet has brought a refreshing realness to a hit American series. She has said that, as she gets older, she is increasingly determined to show people as they are rather than the contrived perfection of women’s lives and looks on social media.

“I’m much more focused on playing characters that honour real levels of truth,” she said. “Not just emotions but how they look.”

Winslet also insisted that everyone had the same-sized trailer on set and has spoken out against “the money that gets wasted on colossal, great big junkets: flying journalists, actors, glam squads all over the world” to promote movies when it could be put towards making more independent movies “or building f---ing classrooms”.

Winslet’s breakout role as Rose in Titanic.Credit: AP

She also plans to rewear outfits to awards shows because of the wastefulness, saying “I don’t like having to squeeze my hot-and-bothered-mum-on-the-school-run body randomly into a red carpet dress that I’m never going to wear again”.

The success of Mare of Easttown shows that level of realness is paying off. Long may it continue.

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