‘Like A Hot Mess’: Kate Winslet Reflects On Being 47 While Juggling Motherhood And A Career

Katie JerkovichDecember 9, 2022

Kate Winslet reflected on being in her late 40’s now as she juggles motherhood and a career, saying she’s less worried these days about “looking like a hot mess.”

During the 47-year-old actress’ recent appearance on the BBC’s “Woman’s Hour” podcast, Winslet hit back at criticism over her character’s appearance in the HBO crime drama “Mare of Easttown.”

“I absolutely had makeup on [while playing Mare] and so when I came to do ‘I Am Ruth,’ which was the next thing I filmed after ‘Mare of Easttown,’ I thought: ‘Well, I’ve only got one option here and that’s to go one step further and really actually not wear any make-up and just scrape my hair back into a crappy old ponytail like I do every day of my life anyway,” the “Revolutionary Road” star shared.

“There are a lot of myths, I think, around perfection and actresses looking perfect all the time and, and how real that is or that isn’t,” she added. “And I do care about being real and telling stories that are truthful and come from a place of integrity.”

The Oscar-winning actor has long been an advocate of embracing aging, and in a new interview with BBC Woman’s Hour, she only doubles down. https://t.co/hmzDZ0Gjb5

— Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) December 8, 2022

“That’s certainly something that I feel is a shift in this time in my life,” Winslet continued. “I care passionately about highlighting issues that need to be talked about that perhaps people find hard to talk about. And not shying away from truly looking like a hot mess a lot of the time. I mean, who puts on makeup while they’re doing the school run? I don’t.”

“There’s something kind of fab about going: ‘Oh well, that’s just the way it is, isn’t it?’” she added.

At one point, Winslet, who has three children, also talked about parenting in the age of social media and said her kids don’t have access to it.

“My children don’t have social media and haven’t had social media,” the actress shared. “There are many fake accounts out there for myself and also my children, weirdly, so I’m told.”

“It is possible to just say, ‘No. You can’t have it,’” she added. “‘I want you to enjoy your life. I want you to be a child. I want you to look at clouds and not photograph them and post them on your Instagram page — and then decide whether or not the clouds were worth looking at because someone out there thought they were rubbish.’”