You know the phrase ‘the camera adds 10 pounds’? Well, for movie actresses like Kate Winslet, knowing her image is on the big screen, whether or not the phrase is actually true or not, has always hit a nerve. After all, Winslet has in many ways grown up in front of the camera, so she’s no stranger to people commenting about her body, size, and so on.
But, in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Winslet opened up about how her relationship with those comments has changed over the years, and how she’s learned to brush them off.
During the filming of her latest movie Lee, in which she plays photographer Lee Miller who became a war correspondent during World War II, someone from the crew suggested she sit up straight in a bikini scene to not show her “belly rolls” on camera.
Instead of sitting up straighter, however, Winslet insisted she didn’t mind looking “less-than-perfect” onscreen. “The opposite,” she told the outlet. “I take pride in it because it is my life on my face, and that matters. It wouldn’t occur to me to cover that up.”
“I’m more comfortable in myself as each year passes,” she added. “It enables me to allow the opinions of others to evaporate.”
Looking back, however, Winslet knows a comment like that might’ve stung her 20-year-old self. “There was a lot of bullying of me that went on in the media, and that did get to me,” she admitted. “Look at all those years in my twenties when I was all sorts of different shapes and sizes.”
But, as she becomes prouder of her body and indifferent to what others may say about it, Winslet is hopeful for this next generation of women.
“I do feel a huge sense of relief that women are so much more accepting of themselves and refusing to be judged,” Winslet said. “Because I don’t know a single contemporary of mine who grew up seeing her mother looking in the mirror and saying: ‘I look nice!’ My mother never did: it was always, ‘Oh God, I don’t think I can wear this, do I look hippy, does my bum look big?'”
“We waste so much time being down on ourselves and I’m just not doing it ever again,” she added.
Previously, Winslet celebrated how this new generation of actresses, including her 23-year-old daughter Mia Threapleton, is standing up for themselves. “They have a voice. They’re learning how to hang on it. They stand up for themselves. They know that they matter. They count for something,” she said on the Today Show. “They’re great together. It’s an exciting time for younger actresses to be coming into an industry like this one — which is huge — but to feel held, supported, nurtured. It’s changed so much. It’s wonderful.”
Regardless of what generation you’re in, it sure is heartwarming for a Hollywood veteran like Winslet to be so proud and unbothered when it comes to her body. May we all choose to not “waste so much time being down on ourselves” too.
Before you go, click here for more celebrities who’ve spoken out about being body-shamed.
