Real Name: Kate Elizabeth Winslet
Nationality: British
Height: 5' 6½
Hair: Strawberry Blonde
Eyes: Blue / Green
Born: October 5, 1975 in Reading, Berkshire, England, UK.
Discovered: Kate started performing at an early age. She scored her first professional role at 11, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms.
Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, was praised by critics.
Still a relative unknown, Kate attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood.
Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
The role that transformed Kate into an A-list celebrity was Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Kate.
Kate's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy nods.
The role and the nominations created many opportunities for Kate who continues to star in powerful and notable roles.
Income: Finding Neverland (2004) £6,000,000
Enigma (2001) £300,000
Quills (2000) £450,000
Holy Smoke (1999) £360,000
Titanic (1997) $2,000,000
Resume: All the King's Men (2005)
Romance & Cigarettes (2005)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Titanic (1997)
Romance: Married to Sam Mendes since May 2003. The pair have one child. Married (from November 1998 - December 2001) and divorced James Threapleton. The pair have one child.
Quotes: "I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films." - Kate Winslet
"We hadn't been planning to do it but we thought it was rather a good idea, so we just did it." - Kate Winslet about her spur-of-the-moment marriage to Sam Mendes
"After Titanic (1997) it would have been completely foolish for me to go and try and top that. I'm an English girl, I've always loved England, I've never felt the desire to leave it for any particular reason. And whilst I'm ambitious and care very much about what I do, I'm not competitive. I also don't want to act every day of my life. ... So it was important to me after Titanic (1997) to just remind myself of why it was that I was acting in the first place, which is of course because I love it." - Kate Winslet
"Since I was 13 or 14, I've always felt older than I actually am." - Kate Winslet
"I was on the tube just before Christmas. and this girl turned round to me and said, 'Are you Kate Winslet?'. And I said, 'Well, yes. I am actually'. And she said, 'And you're getting the tube?' And I said, 'Yes'. And she said, 'Don't you have a big car that drives you around?' And I said, 'No'. And she was absolutely stunned that I wasn't being driven round in some flash car all the time. It was ludicrous." - Kate Winslet
"People say to me, 'You seem to have made this conscious decision to do independent films'. In reality, I haven't. After each movie, I always think, how different can I possibly be?... Is this going to challenge me, is this going to inspire me, and is this going to make me love my job more than I already do?" - Kate Winslet
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