Winslet takes on challenges of ‘Wonder Wheel’ waitress
It’s the day of the New York Film Festival premiere of “Wonder Wheel,” and, as she slides into a booth at a midtown restaurant, Kate Winslet has shifted her focus to another opening — her 17-year-old daughter’s school play.
Winslet finishes texting her daughter, Mia, for an update, and we debate whether it’s more challenging to raise an adolescent girl or boy. (Winslet also has a 13-year-old son, Joe, as well as a 3-year-old boy, Bear.) Basically, we decide it’s a draw.
Winslet’s powerful, confident turn in “Wonder Wheel” drew strong reviews at the New York festival. In the Woody Allen film, she plays Ginny, a postwar Coney Island waitress harboring deep regrets about her past and holding on to a desperate hope that she might escape her life’s misery and at last find happiness.
During the interview, Winslet, 42, shared her thoughts about disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein and that she pointedly refused to thank him at the Oscars.
“I won’t be pushed around or bullied by anyone,” Winslet said. “I was bullied as a child. Never again. Certainly not by Harvey Weinstein.”
That’s a good place to pick up the conversation, which has been edited for space and clarity.
Q: You mentioned you were bullied as a child. What happened?
A: I was very chubby, so I was teased for that when I was 7 or 8. Really horribly teased. Locked in a cupboard, stuff like that. And then when I was a teenager, I was bullied again for similar reasons.
Q: Is that a reason you’ve been outspoken on body image over the years?
A: We have to somehow instill this idea in young women that their body is their strength, that their body is something to be proud of and can carry them, as opposed to being something they just don’t like and continue to criticize and comment upon. So we have to try to help young women reach that place of acceptance at a younger age.
Q: How do you do that with your daughter?
A: Positive reinforcement, all the time. I tell her, “God, you look amazing! Do you feel good? How do you feel?” Just making sure that she feels strong and confident. But more importantly — because you don’t want to over-compliment, as then it becomes meaningless — I tell her how proud I am of myself. So she isn’t exposed to me saying negative comments about myself in front of her because she’s going to learn from that and copy it.
Q: You just did that crazy mountain survival movie (“The Mountain Between Us”). Do you feel stronger now than at any point in your life?
A: I do. It’s an absolutely amazing feeling because I feel like my physical strength is improving with age as opposed to dwindling.
Q: What was harder: “The Mountain Between Us” or “Titanic”?
A: “Wonder Wheel.” (Laughs) A lot harder than both of them, believe you me.
Q: Why?
A: Because of the size of the role, because of the size of the emotions of my character and my absolute determination to make her my own character and not a cliched version of the woman who’s neurotic or drinks too much. She’s much more tragic than that because she has real dreams. She truly believes that the life she’s living is not hers, and, of course, it absolutely is.
She has huge regrets, and she’s trying to escape all the time, wanting to move on, just being breathless. So as a consequence, I truly felt physically breathless for the whole of the shoot.