Oscar-winner Kate Winslet has spoken about her life growing up in a personal admission, about the 50-year-old says it helped her in one of her early film roles
09:11, 29 Dec 2025Updated 09:12, 29 Dec 2025
Kate Winslet spoke about her teenage years (Image: GETTY)
Kate Winslet has opened up about her first intimate experiences – and says they weren’t with men.
Oscar-winning actress Kate, 50, has been talking about her early life on and off screen. Kate’s first breakthrough came with Heavenly Creatures in 1994, where her performance earned critical acclaim and put her firmly on the acting map before she became a global star thanks to Titanic three years later.
Her first major role, opposite Melanie Lynskey, centred aronnd two young girls’ intense friendship, which later becomes a dangerously obsessive bond. Appearing on the Team Deakins podcast, she spoke about her own teenage years at the time of the movie, and made a personal revelation.
She says her earliest intimate experiences were with women
With trademark honesty, Kate told hosts Roger and James Deakins: “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 went on: “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.”
It’s not the first time she has been open about growing up. Kate spoke earlier this month she chatted about her early years, revealing how a comment from a drama teacher about her weight stayed with her for years and shaped the way she saw herself as a young performer.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs , the star – married to Edward Abel Smith – recalled being told early on that she could have a career “if you’re happy to settle for the fat girl parts”. But she added what many will now be thinking: “Look at me now.”
Kate, now 49, admitted the words landed hard. “I didn’t aspire to play leading roles ever,” she said. “I was just Kate from Reading. I didn’t get film scripts.”
She also spoke candidly about struggling with her body image as a teenager. From 15 to 19, she was on and off diets, admitting that by the end she was barely eating. “It wasn’t healthy,” she said. “I’d wake up panicking about whether I looked fat. It’s the only thing in my life I really regret.”
Four years ago, she spoke to The Sunday Times about how some actors are too ‘terrified’ to come out over how it would impact their careers. “I cannot tell you the number of young actors I know – some well known, some starting out – who are terrified their sexuality will be revealed and that it will stand in the way of their being cast in straight roles.
“I can think of at least four actors absolutely hiding their sexuality. It’s painful. Because they fear being found out.”
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