A new, exciting face on the acting scene, Mia Threapleton turned heads at the TV BAFTAs last night (14 May) – and not just because she's Kate Winslet's eldest daughter.
The duo won big for their work as an onscreen mother and daughter in I Am Ruth – directed by Dominic Savage – which follows a concerned mother (Winslet) as her daughter (Threapleton) becomes more and more consumed by social media.
Upon collecting the film's award for Single Drama at the awards ceremony, Winslet made a lovely shout out to Mia: “If I could break it in half, I would give the other half to my daughter, we did this together, kiddo.”
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Threapleton – who takes her father (British film director and Winslet's first husband) Jim's surname – may have been flying under the radar for some time, but starring alongside your famous mum in a meaningful, award-winning TV series is definitely a point of arrival.
Here's what we know so far about 22-year-old Mia.
What do we know about I Am Ruth, Mia's latest project?
It's the third instalment in a trilogy of I Am series, with previous iterations starring Samantha Morton and Vicky McClure. Each looks at “the experiences of three women in personal and emotional moments”, according to IMDB.
Mia called her time working on I Am Ruth “extremely unique”. “I’m still extremely new to this industry and I feel so grateful any time I get an opportunity to do any work at all,” she said. “To then be presented with this type of opportunity to really be part of the creative process and to be able to talk so freely and openly about creative ideas, thoughts or opinions has been really fantastic. It was an extremely interesting dynamic to work around.”
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In an interview with British Vogue, Kate Winslet opened up about what it was like to work with Mia: “It was a really special experience… as a mother and daughter. I was given new things to respect and admire about my own child,” she said . “I wanted to cover areas of motherhood and being a mother that can sometimes be incredibly challenging and lonely.”
She added that “everything” was improvised for the project: “There was no script... Every single word that came out of our mouths, we made up on the day.”
What other roles has Mia Threapleton played?
She appeared in a modern TV adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons last year, after acting in Irish thriller Shadows and 2014 film A Little Chaos alongside Winslet and other amazing household names such as Stanley Tucci, Helen McRory and Alan Rickman.
What does Kate Winslet think of Mia's foray into the acting world?
During an interview with Lorraine Kelly, she called Mia's decision to follow her in to world of acting “a wonderful thing that I think I knew was coming”.
“I think I always suspected," she said. "And then sure enough, a couple years ago, she turned around and said, ‘I think I would like to give it a go.'”
What with the huge conversation around nepo babies, Winslet was clear that Mia is committed to using her father's name, as to make her own way without the connection from her famous mum to aid her.
“What’s been really great for her is that she has a different surname so that initial job out of the gate, she slipped right under the radar,” she added. “The people who cast her had absolutely no idea that she was my daughter. And of course, that was my biggest fear and most important for her self esteem.”
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What has Mia said about working with her mum on I Am Ruth?
Mia has spoken openly about how much she enjoyed working with Winslet, and how their connection aided their performance.
“This was the first time that we have ever worked together,” she explained. "She has been my mum for 21 years but we’ve never worked together and it was really fun actually. It was really good fun and really enjoyable."
She also added that the fact they are a real mother and daughter playing those roles "helped in a way because the chemistry, the connection, the emotional bond between us as a mother and daughter who are very close to each other, was already there".
Despite her career choice, Mia has spoken before about not spending loads of time on set with Winslet as a child, as well as the reality of the hard work and graft of the job being impressed upon her by her mum.
“I never actually spent much time around sets that my mum was working on,” she told Variety back in 2020. “It was always a special treat. It’s a very different experience when it is happening to you, and not just something I was getting to observe from time to time.
"I really understand why my mum has always impressed on us how hard the work is. She is right! And I loved every second of it.”
