Kate Winslet says a drama teacher told her as a teenager that she could “have a career” if she was willing to “settle for the fat girl parts,” a remark she now calls “appalling” and emblematic of how casually adults police children’s bodies. Winslet recounted the comment in a recent BBC Radio 4 “Desert Island Discs” appearance, remarks later amplified by Deadline.
In the same interview, Winslet described being bullied at school over her size—she said classmates called her “blubber” and once locked her in an art cupboard—and connected that treatment to years of disordered eating. She said she dieted on and off from ages 15 to 19 and was “barely eating” at 19. “I learned to have a pretty thick skin pretty early on,” Winslet said, adding that she leaned on acting and creative work to keep moving forward.
The moment also revives a line Winslet has shared before. At the 2016 BAFTAs, she told the audience she was 14 when a teacher warned her to accept “fat girl parts,” then dedicated her speech to young women who had been put down by authority figures.
Winslet’s comments land as she promotes “Goodbye June,” her directorial debut, released this month, and as she returns to a theme she has pressed in recent interviews: the pressure to chase thinness and “perfection” as public scrutiny intensifies. She told one interviewer this month that the current appetite for weight-loss drugs feels “devastating” and “terrifying,” and questioned whether people understand what they are putting in their bodies.
Industry advocates say the pressures Winslet describes remain common, even as casting becomes more conscious about representation. The U.K. performers’ union Equity warns that appearance-based discrimination is “rife,” and its research found 64% of surveyed performers had been asked to change their appearance for work; among those requests, 33% involved being told to lose weight. The same report found 53% of respondents had tried to lose weight ahead of auditions.
