Kate Winslet has recently opened up about her early experiences with women during an interview.
The actress became internationally recognized following the success of Titanic in 1997. However, she had already made a name for herself with earlier roles, starting with her film debut at age 19 in Heavenly Creatures in 1994 and then in Sense and Sensibility in 1995.
Winslet’s involvement in Heavenly Creatures was pivotal both personally and professionally. The film portrays the intense relationship between two teenage girls who create an intricate fantasy world and hatch a plan to commit murder to remain together.
In a recent interview reflecting on this role, Winslet mentioned that her teenage experiences with female friendships deeply influenced the portrayal of the bond between her character, Juliet Hulme, and Melanie Lynskey’s character, Pauline Parker.
Winslet shared on the Team Deakins podcast, “I’ll share something I’ve never shared before. Some of my first intimate experiences as a young teen were actually with girls. I’d kissed a few girls, and I’d kissed a few boys, but I wasn’t particularly evolved in either direction.”
She continued, “At that stage in my life, I certainly was curious, and I think there was something about the really intense connection that those two women had that I profoundly understood. I was so immediately sucked into the vortex of that world they were in that obviously became horrendously damaging to both of them, and they had huge insecurities and vulnerabilities.”
Winslet is currently married to Edward Abel Smith, marrying him in 2012.
She has three children: 25-year-old daughter Mia Honey Threapleton from her first marriage to Jim Threapleton, 22-year-old son Joe Alfie Mendes, also known as Joe Anders, from her second marriage to Sam Mendes, and 12-year-old son Bear Blaze Winslet with her current husband, who is known as a businessman, non-fiction author, and producer.
The film Heavenly Creatures is based on the infamous Parker-Hulme murder case in Christchurch, New Zealand. This case involved the murder of Honorah Rieper, Pauline Parker’s mother, in 1954. Pauline Parker, at 16, and her 15-year-old close friend Juliet Hulme killed Honorah by beating her with a brick in a sock during a stroll in the park on June 22, 1954, as reported by NZ History.
The teenagers regarded Honorah as a barrier to their intense relationship and their shared imaginary world, leading them to decide she needed to be ‘removed’ for them to stay together.
Both were convicted of murder and sentenced to detention as minors. They each served about five years in different prisons, changed their names, and relocated to the UK. They were also prohibited from ever contacting each other again.