Kate Winslet still remembers how it felt to be body shamed.
In a 60 Minutes interview released on Sunday, Dec. 1, the Oscar winner, 49, reflected on her career and fought back tears at one point.
While discussing her breakout role in Titanic, Winslet was shown an E! News clip from the 1998 Golden Globes red carpet, where an on-air host can be heard saying the actress looked “a little melted and poured into” her dress and that she “needed two sizes larger and she’d be okay.”
“It’s absolutely appalling,” replied The Reader star, who won Best Actress at the 2009 Academy Awards. “What kind of a person must they be to do something like that to a young actress who’s just trying to figure it out?”
When asked if she ever confronted the press for their comments, Winslet admitted she did get “face to face” with some.
“I let them have it. I said, ‘I hope this haunts you,’ ” she recalled saying.
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“It was a great moment,” the Lee actress added as she fought back tears on 60 Minutes. “It was a great moment because it wasn’t just for me, it was for all those people who were subjected to that level of harassment. It was horrific. It was really bad.”
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Winslet recently starred in Lee, a biopic that follows famed photojournalist Lee Miller as she chronicled events of World War II for Vogue. While shooting the film, which Winslet also produced, the star said she brought an “armor” to the role.
“People say, ‘Oh, you were so brave for this role, you didn’t wear any makeup. You know, you had wrinkles.’ Do we say to the men, ‘Oh, you were so brave for this role, you grew a beard’? ” Winslet asked.
“It’s not brave, it’s playing the part,” she continued.
A crew member on Lee even suggested that Winslet “suck in and sit up” to avoid showing “lumps.” However, Winslet said she refused to hide her curves, noting, “I don’t think Lee would’ve done [that]. It’s about knowing Lee’s ease with her physical self was hard won.”
While promoting the film in October, the mother of three spoke to PEOPLE at the Women in Film Gala about how she works through mistakes, emphasizing that she tries “not to be hard on myself.”
“I think women in general, we’re hard on ourselves all the time,” she said. “It’s a terrible waste of energy, and I don’t ever want to look back at my life and think to myself, ‘I wish I had been kinder on myself.’ ”
“I want to do that now and always be doing that,” the Heavenly Creatures star added. “So that’s what I do.”
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