Kate Winslet - Titanic EGO

Felix Film wishes a warm and happy birthday to England’s very own Kate Winslet, celebrating her 37th birthday today; and as a special thank you to one of the most talented actresses of our time, we look back at the highlights in the extraordinarily diverse career of a supremely gifted English actres

Powerful debut: Heavenly Creatures (1994):

After bit parts in British television, Winslet made her film debut in Peter Jackson’s dark and stylishly gripping Heavenly Creatures. She received wide critical acclaim in her first motion picture appearance, and won several awards (including the Empire Award and London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress), putting her firmly in place within the film industry.

Wider recognition and UK success: Sense and Sensibility (1995), Jude (1996), Hamlet (1996):

She landed further supporting roles in UK-financed films, portraying Marianne Dashwood in Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility for which she was nominated for her first Academy Award and won her first BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award aged 21 at the time, Michael Winterbottom’s Jude and Kenneth Branagh’s all-star Shakespeare vehicle Hamlet.

International breakthrough: Titanic (1997):

After a long, tough auditioning process, Winslet finally landed the part of Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic. Little did she, or anyone, know at that stage that Cameron’s disaster film would become the global movie event. The filming process was not an easy one, with harsh working conditions and Cameron’s perfectionist attitude making for some challenging events. But once the film finally did open, it went on to exceed everyone’s wildest expectations, and Winslet’s name and face were all over the world. She received her second Academy Award nomination here.

Return to independent cinema: Holy Smoke! (1999), Quills (2000), Enigma (2001), Iris (2001):

Despite the unprecedented success of Titanic, and despite being offered many lucrative roles in big-budget studio pictures, Winslet turned them all down and retreated to independent films. Paired up with Australian director Jane Campion, she completed Holy Smoke! a quirky, intriguing travelogue which won both Campion and Winslet the Elvira Notari Prize at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. She starred in a period piece opposite Geoffrey Rush as a chambermaid to the Marquis de Sade in a mental institution in Quills. Her first war film was in Enigma directed by Michael Apted, and her third Academy Award nomination came from Iris, playing the late British author and philosopher Dame Iris Murdoch.

Further success: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006):

Departing from her usual roles, she appeared with Jim Carrey in the weirdly brilliant, neurotic, and baffling Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind penned by Charlie Kaufman, which earned her the fourth Academy Award nomination. Rounding off 2004 was Finding Neverland, a semi-biographical retelling of J. M. Barrie’s relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Winslet) whose sons inspired him to write Peter Pan. After scoring another Academy Award nomination as a deluded adulteress in Little Children, she set the record of becoming the youngest actor to garner five nominations.

In comes the much-deserved Oscar: The Reader (2008), Revolutionary Road (2008):

2008 saw Winslet starring in some real award-worthy, showy productions that were sure to score her some wins after a long streak of losing at the Oscars. It was just a matter of choosing between her two outstanding performances in The Reader, in which she played an ex-Nazi officer with a shameful secret, and in Revolutionary Road, which reunited her with DiCaprio 11 years after the sinking ship, playing a married couple on the brink of a dangerous relationship meltdown. She triumphed with the former, winning her much-deserved golden statuette.

Later roles and an Emmy win: Contagion (2011), Carnage (2011), Mildred Pierce (2011):

Winslet had two films premiere at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, both of which were well received. Contagion, an ensemble piece chronicling the spread and reaction to a deadly virus outbreak, has been described as a “tense, tightly plotted and smart” thriller. Carnage, Roman Polanski’s adaptation of the darkly comic play also won her rave reviews, earning the entire ensemble a handful of awards. Her big award victory after the Oscars came after she landed the titular role in HBO’s adaptation of Mildred Pierce, as a struggling single mother bringing up her two daughters during the Great Depression. She scooped up essentially every single Best Actress in a Mini-Series Award out there, including the top prize, the Emmy.

Upcoming roles: Movie 43 (2013), Labor Day (2013), The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2013):

If everything goes according to plan, three of Winslet’s films will be released in 2013. Movie 43 will be an ensemble comedy piece of several intertwining tales; with Labor Day she unknowingly helps an escaped convict; and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (good luck to this film’s advertising team) will reunite her and director Kenneth Branagh for the first time since Hamlet, in which she is reportedly playing an author in post World War II Guernsey Island writing a book about the Island’s residents’ experiences during the war.