Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet (born October 5, 1975) is a five-time Academy Award-nominated, Emmy Award-nominated, BAFTA, Grammy and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning English actress. She is noted for having played a wide range of diverse characters over her career, but is probably best-known for her critically acclaimed performances as Juliet Hulme in Heavenly Creatures (1994), Rose DeWitt Bukater in the highest-grossing film of all time, Titanic (1997), and Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). She is the winner of a BAFTA and SAG Award, and a five-time Oscar nominee. At the age of 22, she broke the record for the youngest person to receive two Oscar nominations, and each of her subsequent nominations has broken a further record: the youngest person to receive three, four, and five nominations. Kate Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, England to Roger Winslet and Sally Bridges, both of whom were actors. Her maternal grandparents, Oliver and Linda Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory, and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver! Her sisters are Beth Winslet and Anna Winslet, also actresses. Most of the people in her family are actors, so her continuing the time-honored tradition was perhaps a natural progression. Winslet, raised as an Anglican, began studying drama at the age of eleven at the Redroofs Theatre School,[1] a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl and was soon cast as a spokesperson for a cereal in television commercials. Although she seems to be living an almost idealistic existence, it wasn't always that way. Throughout her adolescence she was severely bullied for being overweight and having exceptionally large feet Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season in 1991. This was followed by appearances in the made-for-tv movie Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992 and an episode of the medical drama Casualty in 1993, also for the BBC. Her film career took off with praise and recognition in 1994 when she starred in a joint leading role, as Juliet Hulme in director Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed Heavenly Creatures, playing a vivacious and imaginative teen who helps her best friend murder her mother when they are not allowed to be together. This role was followed by the successful film Sense and Sensibility (co-starring Emma Thompson), which made her well-known, especially in the UK. Winslet became famous world-wide after the 1997 release of Titanic, a massive hit which holds the record as highest-grossing film in history (not accounting for inflation) at more than 1 billion dollars in box-office worldwide. It went on to win 11 Academy Awards. Winslet has been regarded as something of a critics' darling, generally receiving positive reviews for every one of her films. Despite Titanic's success, she has continued making lower-budget, independent films, including Hideous Kinky and Holy Smoke!; her roles in these smaller, more artistic films appear to be one of choice - she turned down the lead in Shakespeare in Love to make Hideous Kinky. She has also taken several roles in studio "period drama"s like Quills, Titanic and Finding Neverland. (For a time, she was given the nickname "Corset Kate"). In 2005, Winslet appeared in a television commercial for American Express. As part of the "My Life, My Card" campaign, the ad shows Winslet strolling around Camden Lock, in London, as she makes references to all the events that have happened to her film characters - such as going to prison for murder (Heavenly Creatures), being penniless and heartbroken (Sense and Sensibility), almost drowning (Titanic), losing her mind (Iris), having her memory erased (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and being in Neverland (Finding Neverland). During the ad, she is shown holding items relating to her films; during the reference to Sense and Sensibility she thumbs through a copy of the book, and when she references Finding Neverland, she's holding a hook. Winslet also appeared in an episode of BBC's comedy series Extras in August of 2005, as a satirical version of 'herself'. She memorably told Andy and Maggie, the two characters who star in the series, that she was doing a film about the Holocaust because she was tired of losing out on Oscars, as she's been nominated four times, and that everyone who does a film about the Holocaust wins an Oscar. She also (while dressed as a nun) was shown giving phone sex tips to the romantically challenged Maggie. Ricky Gervais later said on NPR that she was his favorite guest star.[2] Her performance in the episode did lead to her being nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performance in a Comedy Series, but she did not win. As of March 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio signed to co-star in Revolutionary Road with Winslet as the Wheeler couple, a '50s couple who appear content on the surface but are withering internally. The film will be the first to reunite the notable duo, who have remained close since their first pairing in Titanic There are also talks that Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes and his production company, Neal Street Productions, purchased the film rights to the long-delayed biography of circus tiger tamer Mabel Stark. Winslet has stated that she has been eager to portray this complex woman for three years now and is looking forward to working with her husband on bringing this to the screen.