Kate Winslet has said women need to celebrate ‘being a real shape and being soft and maybe having a few extra rolls’ after she was told to hide her ‘belly rolls’ on the Lee Miller biopic film set.
The actress, 48, who is depicting the World War II photographer in the biopic directed by Ellen Kuras, said she found the comment ‘absolutely bizarre’ because Lee Miller’s body ‘would be soft’.
Kate told the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg: ‘It was my job to be like Lee. She wasn’t lifting weights and doing Pilates, she was eating cheese, bread and drinking wine and not making a big deal of it, so of course her body would be soft.’
‘But I think we’re so used to perhaps not necessarily seeing that and enjoying it – the instinct, weirdly, is to see it and criticise it or comment on it in some way.
‘It’s interesting how much people do like labels for women. And they very much liked them in Lee’s day, and, annoyingly, they sort of still do – we slap these labels on women that we just don’t have for men. It’s absolutely bizarre to me.’
Kate Winslet attends the premiere of Lee in Leicester Square on September 3, 2024
Andy Samberg as Davie Scherman and Kate Winslet as Lee Miller in the biopic about the World War II photographer
Kate says she was told to hide her ‘belly rolls’ on the set of Lee which she found ‘bizarre’ as Lee Miller ‘wasn’t lifting weights and doing Pilates, she was eating cheese, bread and drinking wine and not making a big deal of it, so of course her body would be soft’
Kate believes women should be having conversations about the labels given to women depending on their body shape and ‘just celebrating being a real shape and being soft and maybe having a few extra rolls’.
She added: ‘Life is too short, do you know? I don’t want to look back and go “Why did I worry about that thing?” And so, guess what? I don’t worry anymore. I don’t care.
‘I’m just going to live my life, going to enjoy it, get on with it. You’ve got one go around – make the most of it.’
It comes after the Titanic star told Harper’s Bazaar magazine that she is ‘going easy’ on herself after struggling to balance all of the expectations put on her as a woman.
She said: ‘As women, we try and keep up with the pace of our lives and we get frustrated if we haven’t managed to fit in doing some exercise or walking the dog for two hours or being there for every single sports day matches, drop off and pick up at school.
‘I’m going easy on myself knowing I simply can’t achieve all of those things – that’s becoming increasingly important to me.’
Kate pictured on the set of her interview for Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg (right)
Kate believes women should be having conversations about the labels given to women depending on their body shape and ‘just celebrating being a real shape and being soft and maybe having a few extra rolls’
Kate – pictured with daughter Mia in 2001 – recently spoke about the struggle of balancing the responsibilities that come with being a woman
Kate, who is mother to Mia Threapleton, 23, Joe Mendes, 20, and Bear, 10, added: ‘Often I will feel at my most beautiful when I’m just relaxing. I’m working on achieving the relaxing thing more and more.’
It’s a philosophy that is shared by her good friend Emma Thompson, with Kate sharing that she offered her advice that has forever stuck with her.
‘When I was younger, she said to me: “Listen babe, just remember, it’s really important to do good work, but it’s really important not to work.” I’ve never forgotten that,’ Kate revealed.
The Oscar-winning star also spoke about how she treats her physical and mental wellbeing on equal par.
She explained: ‘Women get more beautiful as they get older. Our faces become more of who we are, they sit better on our bone structure, they have more life, more history.
‘Things I find incredibly beautiful are wrinkles around the eyes, the backs of hands.
‘But I also have learned it’s important to take care of yourself from the inside – not just how you eat and look after yourself from a nutritional standpoint, but how you look after yourself from a mental wellness standpoint; how you feel about yourself emotionally, physically, your place within the world, how you walk through the world, how you live with integrity and sincerity.
‘I think these things matter and these things come out in how we look, and of course in how we feel. Beauty is more of a feeling, [rather] than what we look at.’