Emma Thompson wanted to make sure Kate Winslet had her wits about her after “Titanic” skyrocketed her career.
Thompson, who co-wrote and starred in the Oscar-winning 1995 film “Sense and Sensibility” alongside Winslet, advised Winslet to balance her work choices. According to Winslet, Thompson was “protective” of her after the 1997 release of “Titanic.”
“She has a grounded-ness and a clarity of perception about the industry as a whole,” Winslet said of Thompson on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “I remember her saying to me after ‘Titanic’…She was quite sort of protective of me and I think she was naturally just sort of worried. Not like ‘Is Kate going to go off the rails?’ because clearly that wasn’t in my personality but it can just be very overwhelming and what was I going to do?”
“She did say to me, ‘Listen babe, just remember it’s equally as important not to work as it is to work,’” Winslet continued. “And I have never forgotten that. It’s really, really true, because as a young actor, often if you do well…I knew I didn’t want to run out. I knew I always wanted to be doing this job.”
Winslet said she remembers taking the suggestion to heart “and acting on it. I’m still acting on it, actually.”
Advice like that just seems to find a way in when the adviser is Emma Thompson, who would go on to win the Oscars for Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay for “Sense and Sensibility.” The film earned Winslet her first Academy Award nomination, though the young star was just happy to be there.
“When I was cast in ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ I thought, ‘Well, they have made a mistake because what am I doing here?’ This was on day one of the shoot and there’s Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant. And then there’s me,” Winslet said. “And I’m like, ‘No, they definitely made a mistake and they just read the wrong name off the list when they made the phone call about the person playing Marianne. But then they didn’t have the guts to tell me that actually they had phoned the wrong girl so they were just hoping I was going to get it right. But I absolutely thought that I was not supposed to be there.”
Check out Winslet on “Happy Sad Confused” here:
