However, that all changed for Winslet, she said, when she and ex-husband Jim Threapleton welcomed their daughter, Mia, 20. She said of becoming a mother, “And so all that s–t just kind of… evaporated.”
The actress is also very conscious of how her body and sexuality is portrayed in her new movie Ammonite, in which she and Saoirse Ronan play lovers. She explained that taking on a character who was subjected to discrimination and gender inequity “made me feel like I had to hold myself accountable for times when I’ve maybe been complicit in the objectification of my own self in film. The things I agreed to. Body positions, or the way I was lit or how few clothes I wore.”
Winslet continued, describing how her and Ronan’s love scenes have been made out to seem graphic in nature when, in truth, it’s an intimate moment between two people who both happen to be women.
“But I have been asked so, so many times about the intimate scenes in Ammonite, way more than I have ever been asked about any heterosexual love scene before. When I have, it’s been comparisons—how was Leo compared with Jude? So embarrassing, so naff,” she discussed. “But what happens with the discussion of LGBTQ love scenes is that people actually use different words to describe them.”