In a recent podcast interview, Kate Winslet shared that her first intimate experiences as a teenager were with girls, drawing parallels to her role in the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. This revelation helped her connect deeply with the intense friendship depicted in the movie. Winslet discussed how her personal curiosity at the time informed her performance.
Kate Winslet opened up about her early acting breakthrough during an episode of the “Team Deakins” podcast. Reflecting on her debut role in Peter Jackson’s 1994 drama-thriller Heavenly Creatures, Winslet portrayed Juliet, a teenager entangled in a dangerously obsessive friendship with another girl, played by Melanie Lynskey. The film explores the profound bond between the two characters, which spirals into darker territory.
When asked how much of herself she brought to the role, Winslet revealed a personal detail she had never shared before. “I’ll share something I’ve never shared before. Some of my first intimate experiences as a young teen were actually with girls,” she said. “I’d kissed a few girls, and I’d kissed a few boys, but I wasn’t particularly evolved in either direction.”
This experience, she explained, allowed her to grasp the “really intense connection” at the film’s heart. “At that stage in my life, I certainly was curious, and I think there was something about the really intense connection that those two women had that I profoundly understood,” Winslet added. She described being “so immediately sucked into the vortex of that world they were in that obviously became horrendously damaging to both of them, and they had huge insecurities and vulnerabilities.”
While Winslet connected with the vulnerability and deep personal ties formed in youth, she noted she “couldn’t truly understand” the story’s darker elements. Heavenly Creatures marked Winslet’s breakout role; she admitted she had “never held a film script” before auditioning. For Jackson, it was his first drama after directing horror films like Bad Taste and Dead Alive, and the dark comedy Meet the Feebles.
Following the film, Winslet’s career gained momentum with roles in Sense and Sensibility, Jude, and Hamlet, leading to her iconic part in Titanic in 1997.
