Women should celebrate ‘being a real shape’

Actress Kate Winslet has told the BBC that women should celebrate “being a real [body] shape” after being told on a recent film set to sit up straighter to hide her belly rolls.

Speaking about her upcoming film Lee on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Winslet said it was her job to be like her character – the fashion model turned acclaimed World War Two photographer Elizabeth `Lee’ Miller.

“She wasn’t lifting weights or doing Pilates. She was eating cheese, bread and drinking wine, and not making a big deal of it. So of course, her body would be soft,” Winslet said.

She said women should celebrate “being a real shape, being soft and maybe having a few extra rolls”.

“We’re so used to perhaps not necessarily seeing that and enjoying it. The instinct weirdly is to see it and criticise it,” she said. “It’s interesting how much people do like labels for women.”

Winslet said the topic is a conversation that needs to be had.

“Life is too short,” she added. “I don’t want to look back and go ‘why did I worry about that thing’ and so guess what – I don’t worry anymore.”

Winslet, 48, has been a champion for women and has openly spoken out against body shaming in the past.

In a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, Winslet spoke of being told to sit up straighter to hide her “belly rolls” while on set filming Lee.

“There’s a bit where Lee’s sitting on a bench in a bikini,” Winslet said. “And one of the crew came up between takes and said ‘You might want to sit up straighter.’ So you can’t see my belly rolls? Not on your life! It was deliberate.”

Winslet was asked if she minded looking “less-than-perfect” on screen, to which she replied: “The opposite. I take pride in it because it is my life on my face, and that matters. It wouldn’t occur to me to cover that up.”

“I’m more comfortable in myself as each year passes. It enables me to allow the opinions of others to evaporate,” she added.