Kate Winslet Says Her Agent Was Asked About Her Weight Before Early Auditions
Kate Winslet was weight-shamed early in her career.
The Academy Award and Emmy winner revealed that she was asked about her weight ahead of auditions when starting out in Hollywood.
“When I was younger my agent would get calls saying, ‘How’s her weight?'” Winslet told The Sunday Times, adding that she cared more “about being that actor who moves their face and has a body that jiggles.”
The “Avatar: The Way of Water” star noted that the media cycle has changed so much in recent years that tabloids are more unrelenting than ever.
“It was hard enough having the flipping News of the World on my doorstep, but that doesn’t even cut it now,” Winslet said. “That phrase about ‘today’s news being tomorrow’s fish and chip paper’ doesn’t exist.”
She continued, “The thing you did when you were drunk or foolish? It may come back to haunt you. Needing to be on one’s guard for young actors is just a different thing. It must be extraordinarily hard.”
Winslet’s former co-star Melanie Lynskey, who starred opposite the “Mare of Easttown” actress in the 1994 film “Heavenly Creatures,” has also been open about criticisms of her appearance. Lynskey told Rolling Stone earlier this year that she was body-shamed on the set of Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.”
“They were asking me, ‘What do you plan to do? I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this,'” Lynskey revealed. “I’m just like, ‘Wow, really? That’s where people’s heads are at, that the most important thing is being thin or young?'”
Lynskey added at the time, “I did find it important that this character is just comfortable and sexual and not thinking or talking about it, because I want women to be able to watch it and be like, ‘Wow, she looks like me and nobody’s saying she’s the fat one.’ That representation is important.”
The “Candy” alum had formerly opened up about battling an eating disorder.
“I was losing my mind trying to conform to something that was not physically possible for me,” Lynskey told People magazine in 2016. “I was very unwell for a long time. I had eating issues and at a certain point I was like, ‘I’m not going to survive’ — not like I was on death’s door or anything, but I was so unhappy and my hair was falling out. I was like, ‘I just need to look the way I’m supposed to look’ and have faith that people are going to want to put someone in a film or on a show who looks like this.”
