Winslet stands up against critics
Actress recalls drama teacher who told her to ‘settle for the fat girl parts’
Having just picked up her third BAFTA in a glittering career — best supporting actress for her role in Steve Jobs, the biopic of the Apple founder — Kate Winslet revealed that as a teenager a drama teacher criticized her weight.
Winslet, 40, dedicated her award to women who have been criticized. “When I was 14, I was told by a drama teacher that I might do OK if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts,” she said after the weekend ceremony. “So what I always feel in these moments is that any young woman who has ever been put down by a teacher, by a friend, by even a parent — just don’t listen to any of it, because that’s what I did: I kept on going and I overcame my fears and got over my insecurities.”
After speculation in which teachers at Winslet’s former school were forced to deny saying it, the star’s spokesman eventually said the alleged comments were made at an independent drama workshop in London.
The actress attended Redroofs theatre school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, from age 11 to 16, but her former headteacher dismissed the notion that any member of staff would have said such remarks to a pupil.
June Rose, 85, who founded Redroofs and taught Winslet speech and drama classes, told The Daily Telegraph: “I’ve never heard that comment before and I would assume if a teacher said something like that to a young pupil, they would immediately tell their parents and the parent would be straight on to the school.
“She would surely have complained to us,” Rose said.
“I can’t imagine anyone would say that to a child. I would take a very dim view of somebody who said that.”
Winslet has spoken previously about being bullied at Redroofs, where she says she was nicknamed “Blubber.”