Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress and occasional singer. She is noted for having played diverse characters over her career, but probably best-known for her critically acclaimed performances as Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic, Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sarah Pierce in Little Children, April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road, and Hanna Schmitz in The Reader.

Winslet has been nominated for six Academy Awards and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as well as being nominated for an Emmy. At the age of 22, she became the youngest actress to receive two Oscar nominations; at age 33, she is now the youngest actor of either sex to receive six nominations. David Edelstein of New York Magazine hails her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation."

Early life

Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom, the daughter of Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming-pool contractor. Her parents were "jobbing actors", with Winslet commenting that she "didn't have a privileged upbringing" and that their daily life was "very hand to mouth". Her maternal grandparents, Linda (née Plumb) and Archibald Oliver Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory Theatre, and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver!. Her sisters, Beth Winslet and Anna Winslet, are also actresses.

Winslet, raised as an Anglican, began studying drama at the age of eleven at the Redroofs Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl and appeared in a television commercial for Sugar Puffs cereal, directed by Tim Pope.

Early work

Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season in 1991. This was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV movie Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back for ITV and an episode of medical drama Casualty in 1993, also for the BBC.

1992–1997

The following year, Winslet auditioned for the adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman, intending to get the small but pivotal role of Lucy Steele. She was instead cast in the second leading role of Marianne Dashwood. Director Ang Lee admitted he was initially worried about the way Winslet had attacked her role in Heavenly Creatures and thus required her to exercise tai chi, read Austen-era Gothic novels and poetry, and work with a piano teacher to fit the grace of the role. Budgeted at $16,500,000, the film became a financial and critical success, resulting in a worldwide box office total of $135 million and various awards for Winslet, winning her both a BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.