Kate Winslet Quotes

1. The whole concept of "grounding" children is utterly stupid - they just go off and rebel and don't like you. When my kids eventually come along, I don't want them to not like me.






2. There's more to life than cheek bones.

3. I finally moved out of my parent's house. It was only fair to let my sister have her own room.

4. I hope I'm always learning something. 






5. I like exposing myself. There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me. I'm the kind of actress who absolutely believes in exposing herself.

6. I was a wayward child, very passionate and very determined. If I made up my mind to do something, there was no stopping me.

7. I wouldn't dream of working on something that didn't make my gut rumble and my heart want to explode.






8. I'd much rather be known as some curvy Kate than as some skinny stick.

9. I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films.

10. It doesn't make any sense...that's why I trust it!



11. It's funny when someone says to you "you're hot" and all that, because I don't think of it in that way.



12. Life is short, and it is here to be lived.

13. Just because society, and government, and whatever was different 100 years ago, doesn't mean that people didn't have sex, pick their nose, or swear.

14. Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.

15. My skin still crawls if you call me a movie star. I get embarrassed. I think, don't be ridiculous. Maybe it's because I'm British. To me, Julia Roberts that's a movie star. But when people do call me one, that, I think, is an enormous compliment but, my God, is that a responsibility!

16. Since I was 13 or 14 I've always felt older than I actually am.

17. Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

18. So I won an Oscar. It's amazing. I've got that for the rest of my life for a performance I am proud of. It nearly killed me. I am really proud of the film. That's it, moving on.

19. There are moments to indulge and enjoy, but I always know when it's time to go home and wash my knickers.

20. After Titanic (1997) it would have been completely foolish for me to go and try and top that. I'm an English girl, I've always loved England, I've never felt the desire to leave it for any particular reason. And whilst I'm ambitious and care very much about what I do, I'm not competitive. I also don't want to act every day of my life…So it was important to me after Titanic (1997) to just remind myself of why it was that I was acting in the first place, which is of course because I love it.

21. People say to me: "You seem to have made this conscious decision to do independent films". In reality, I haven't. After each movie, I always think, how different can I possibly be?Is this going to challenge me, is this going to inspire me, and is this going to make me love my job more than I already do?

22. Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me.

23. (talking about her screen debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994)): "I was reading the script in the back of the car and I turned to my dad and yelled: "I've GOT to get this!" And he replied: "Then you will." And I thought: "Yep, that's it. I'm bloody well going to." And that was it. I was so determined. It was something crucial to my life. I just so communicated with her, the story and their relationship. And when I found out, I just couldn't believe it. I was so happy, I cried. I remember I was working part-time at a deli at the time because I didn't have any money and was in the middle of making a sandwich when they phoned and said I'd got the job. I burst into tears and had to leave work because I couldn't control myself. It was absolutely brilliant.

24. I'm really proud of being English, because I learned my job in England, in English films with English actors. But I never dared dream of such a success…it's more than a dream. I realize it's extraordinary for a British actress. I feel good, but guilty at the same time, cause I wish I could share this emotion with all my British actors' friends…I play the main character in the most expensive and probably successful film, but that's not a good reason to leave England and become a superstar. Not at all.

25. (On receiving her 4th Oscar nomination) I can't believe it. I am ecstatic! This nomination means so much to me. To be remembered for a film that was released a while ago, I am unbelievably honored and completely overwhelmed.






26. It's very important for me to make the statement that I am English and just because I've done one really big film, it doesn't mean that I don't want to keep a finger in the fantastic British film industry and do films like this.

27. I was on the tube just before Christmas. and this girl turned round to me and said: "Are you Kate Winslet?". And I said: "Well, yes. I am actually". And she said: "And you're getting the tube?" And I said: "Yes". And she said: "Don't you have a big car that drives you around?" And I said: "No". And she was absolutely stunned that I wasn't being driven round in some flash car all the time. It was ludicrous.


28. (On a scene from the movie Holy Smoke (1999)) It was a difficult scene. When I read the script and I saw this scene was there, I laughed hysterically. I just couldn't believe it. When it came to shooting it, I had been sort of putting it off, and pretending it wasn't going to happen. And suddenly, I am there naked, peeing and thinking: "Oh no!" It was really hard to do, but I've always loved the fact that it was there, and it's such a sort of turning point for the character I play in the movie that I've always felt sort of good, that it should be there.

29. (On going to the 1996 Oscars) Emma Thompson said to me: "Listen, it's honestly just like going to see a fantastic show", and actually it really is, because there are so many people to look at and all those fabulous frocks and it's really fascinating. But mum and dad and I did kind of amble through it a bit, a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies, getting out the car, my mum stepping on my dress and I'm going "Mum, mum!"

30. It seems daft that I'm famous and I've not really got to grips with that.






31. (About her spur-of-the-moment marriage to Sam Mendes) We hadn't been planning to do it but we thought it was rather a good idea, so we just did it.

32. I don't know if it's a skill, but I have been really lucky. I've always got on with every actor I've had to work opposite. I just always try and be as accepting of that person as I possibly can, and remain non-judgmental about their process, because every actor works in a different way.

33. I've been skinny; it's f... boring.







34. Joel, I'm not a concept. I want you to just keep that in your head. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a f...-up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours.

35. When you have kids, you lose any shred of vanity you may have had.

36. My life did change from Titanic, and for the better in many ways, but I was only 21, and there were some things that were so tough. I just thank God I never stuck a needle in my arm, or snorted cocaine or was found drunk in a gutter, I never, ever even skimmed the edges of that world. And that's really because of my parents, how they raised me and my two sisters. But my life is so drastically different now from what it was then, my day-to-day life. I have my two kids and my marriage, and it feels like it happened to another person, which makes it easier to think through.

37. You know, I've never met Brad Pitt, and I'm really looking forward to shaking his hand.


38. When I was 18 and 19 and 20, I would weigh myself and write it down in my diary. I'm not that person now. I have that feeling of not caring. I'm just happy being me.

39. I've always applied the same attitude to things, an impulsive, instinctive reaction. It's hard to describe, but I often get a sense of absolute certainty - like: "Yeah, that's the thing I really would want to do". Maybe this is the part of me that's not very business savvy, but I never think: "Oh, this or that will be good for me". Only afterward will it dawn on me, where I say: "Oh, this is good because I haven't played an everyday American woman as I do in Little Children, or a modern Englishwoman as I do in The Holiday". It's only after I've finished it that I realize something worked out. Which is very typical of me in life. I've never been a good planner. I can plan my life and kids and everything, but in terms of work, I've never been good at it. I like the flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing. Life is more interesting then.

40. I'm not fat, I'm just not skinny any more. When I was skinny, I was really unhappy and unhealthy.





41. I don't think I will get naked in a movie again. I can't keep getting away with it and I don't want to become "that actress who always gets her kit off".

42. I don't feel like a movie star in my life at all, and I don't particularly think I behave like one. I don't have my own plane. I don't have a chef or a trainer. To me, you're a movie star only during the time when you're at the Academy Awards or at an important glamorous event. It's very much a hat that you wear, and as soon as the event's over, that hat comes off. I'm back to being me and being Mommy, and that's my priority.

43. I never had huge ambitions...never. I was fat. I didn't know any fat famous actresses. I just did not see myself in that world at all, and I'm being very sincere. You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. And I still sort of have that. I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city and I think, I should make more of an effort.

44. To be honest with you, I'm more nervous through this award season than I have ever been before in my life. I'm still not used to it at all. I'm not exercising at all, and I'm eating whatever I like. Pressure? Gone! That's how I'm going to get through it.



45. I have a crumble baby belly, boobs are worse for wear after two kids…I'm doing all right. I'm 33. I don't look in the mirror and go: "Oh, I look fantastic!" Of course I don't.

46. We had more to shoot and we had to work a lot faster, but the determination and the level of focus that we all had to have, because we were limited, was so much more intense than certainly any film I've been a part of. Film, schmilm. I'm telling you, television is so much harder.

47. I don't want to judge, but it's not for me. I would never adjust any part of my face; I just absolutely wouldn’t do it. But I also feel all that stuff is a bit scary: does anyone know the long-term effects of Botox or these filler things?






48. It's all so upsetting. That's why I find myself talking about Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep, these beautiful women who are ageing gracefully. And Judi Dench and Helen Mirren -look at those women! And, guess what everybody? They're working! And why? Because their faces still move. I just can't imagine ever paralyzing any part of my face.

49. I think plastic surgery is terrifying. Out of control. It makes me really sad, especially when you see younger women altering their faces. I don't bring glossy magazines into the home. In our house, it's Nat Geo, Nat Geo Kids and Sainsbury's Magazine.

50. I don't feel guilty about working now. When Mia was younger I did, but that was largely to do with the press. You know: "She's off and the child gets left behind". You just want to kill yourself when you read those things.

51. Mia and Joe are not on-set movie kids. I don't ever have them hang out in the trailer, because I don't like the notion that they are sort of beholden to my schedule, not knowing when they're going to see me. I'd rather, you know, give them a big kiss in the morning before I go off to work.

52. They met on the set of Sense and Sensibility. He was told you're going to meet your future partner…so he courted Kate for weeks, took her to Glastonbury. She didn't take to it because she's a mod and he's a hippy- it didn't work out so it turned out to be me.

53. When I was a kid, one of our hamsters suddenly gave birth - we didn't even know she was pregnant. We phoned the pet shop and they said: "Take the babies away - hamsters get very frightened after they've given birth and you don't want her to eat the babies." We didn't listen and that's exactly what happened. This obviously affected me badly as I had a recurring dream about hamsters gobbling up their babies until I was about 15.

54. (Kate Winslet puts her Oscar in the bathroom / February 23, 2010) Because basically everybody wants to touch it, everybody wants to hold it and go: "Oh, my gosh," and "How heavy is it?". So I figured if I put it (in the bathroom), then people can avoid the whole: "Where's your Oscar?" thing.

55. It's great to wear lovely dresses and to just experience those moments of dress up, especially as a mum, because you get so few moments to feel good in your own skin and wear a lovely gown.


56. I think I was probably eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror, and this would have been a shampoo bottle.

57. You have to forgive me because I have a habit of not winning things.






58. I hadn't realized how much my chemistry with him since "Titanic" would still stick... It's great to discover we can just slip right into it, like muscle memory.

59. (on Leonardo Dicaprio) Leo and I, you know, are sort of kindred spirits…We're cut from the same cloth.






60. I accept my body. I accept how I am and make the best of what I am given. Children orientate towards examples. That's why I talk solely positive about my body in front of my daughter.

61. Nobody is perfect. I just don't believe in perfection. But I do believe in saying: "This is who I am and look at me not being perfect!" I'm proud of that.



62. I believe it is important to go on insisting that normality is not what we are exposed to. Honestly, among my acquaintances there is no woman wearing XS. No, sorry, there is one: my daughter. The point is that Mia is 11 years old.

63. I don't go to the gym because I don't have time but I do Pilates workout DVDs for 20 minutes or more every day at home.




64. I still don't believe this craziness for being skinny, but I eat sensibly and I don't stuff down chocolate biscuits.

65. I don't have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody else's or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are.




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