Kate Winslet ‘Couldn’t Wait’ to Turn 50

You’re the youngest honoree for AARP’s Movies for Grownups 25 Most Fabulous Women Over 50! How did you approach turning 50?

Oh my God, I couldn’t wait. I was so excited. As I’ve gotten older, my life has only become richer and more interesting. I’ve become more interested in not just stories to tell but people that I meet, as well as an overwhelming degree of compassion and empathy coming out of me at this time in my life. I appreciate being able to support young people. I appreciate being able to make young women feel good about themselves.

Even when you first started in the business, you were unfiltered. You made headlines this week after slamming weight-loss drugs and the “terrifying” effects of injectables in an interview with a British newspaper.

I enjoyed this [Sunday Times] journalist wanting to talk to me about beauty standards and whether I think it’s gotten any better. I welcome the opportunity to be able to talk. Again, I’m saying nothing new, right? I’m talking about how this idea of perfection doesn’t actually exist. And yet, younger women who are not in this industry are trying to live up to standards they believe are real, when all of us [actors] have been in hair and makeup for hours.

What I think is a shame is that giving a compassionate, educated opinion gets twisted into condemnation and criticism. I’m not criticizing anybody, and I never do, and I never have, and I never would, because you can never know all of someone else’s story. And I really mean that.

In “Mare of Easttown,” Winslet played a police officer investigating a brutal murder in a small Pennsylvania town while also trying to keep her life from falling apart.

HBO/Courtesy Everett Collection

What is the best part about getting older for you?

I care more about authenticity now than I have ever. I have learned the hard way, you know. I’ve been beaten up by the media. When I was in my 20s, it’s no secret that certainly the British media were extremely unpleasant to me, and that could have really broken me. I’ve been fortunate to have had a great family, good friends, people who just reminded me of a good meal at a table, a kind word, a good hug. Those are the things that matter the most of all.

Goodbye June perfectly captures the sometimes hilarious, sometimes depressing sides of caregiving. Is it a personal story?

It isn’t an autobiography. My son lost his grandmother, my mom [Sally Bridges-Winslet, to ovarian cancer in 2017]. He was so struck by how we were all able to come together for her in that moment, which, logistically and geographically, was almost impossible. Yet we were there for her because that was the only thing that mattered. So he took that as his emotional backdrop and created a fictional, messy, complicated family [and] set it at Christmastime, which I really thought was just brilliant.

It can be risky mixing business and family, but you did it. Why?

[Joe] was very nervous for me to read the script because he’d never written any [screenplays] before. Of course, he’d written a million things at school that I’ve read all of his life, being his mother. He’s always been a good writer.

(From left) Winslet with her children Mia Threapleton and Joe Anders. Her third child, Bear Blaze Winslet, was born in 2013 to Winslet and her husband, Edward Abel Smith.

Joe Maher/Getty Images; Jo Hale/Getty Images

Is it a little complicated for you seeing Joe [with ex-husband director Sam Mendes] and daughter [actor Mia Threapleton, 25, with ex-husband Jim Threapleton] go into show business, knowing how hard it was for you as a young star?

It’s funny, I only actually think about the great things that this career has given me. … What has been very interesting is now that my daughter has done a whole gigantic press tour earlier this year for The Phoenician Scheme, she came home and she was like, ‘Mom, I just don’t know how you did all that when we were so little. When did you plan all your outfits? I never saw any of those things.’ And I’m like, ‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ Because I would always keep that so separate. And you just get so good [at balancing life] as a working mother, and you just keep going. … The one thing that I have really learned is also how important it is for our children to see us happy as women, to see us fulfilled, to see us thriving and growing, and also that we never stop learning.

What was the best advice you ever got? Do you remember who gave it to you?

Yes, I do. Emma Thompson. When I was in my early 20s, she said to me, ‘Now listen, Winslet. This is an exciting time for you, but you’ve got to remember, it’s equally as important not to work as it is to work.’ And I really listen to that and cherish that and hold on to it. She’s a great lady. I’m very lucky to have her in my life.

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, actually. I just don’t believe in that because often resolutions are like, ‘Do less of something.’ And I’m just like, ‘Do more. Why not?’ So, probably my New Year’s resolution is to just do more.