When Kate Winslet won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role in Mare of Easttown, she was asked what it meant to win an award for “a role like Mare”.
For those who don’t know, Winslet’s decidedly unglamorous detective is consumed with vaping and eating junk food, and Winslett, who has had her share of "shocking" and "straight-up cruel" (her words) body shaming media coverage, took the opportunity to take a stand for authenticity.
It was cheering to hear her response, reported here by Deadline.com.
“It means a huge amount, because it makes me feel that our industry is changing,” she said.
“I’m honestly starting to feel that, that the shifts are happening. And I think we’re finger pointing a lot less at women in terms of how they look, their shape. We stopped scrutinising them. In turn, what happens then, is that younger generations of women, who are not in our industry, start to feel OK within themselves too. And that’s more important than anything else. Because it’s up to us to be absolutely being real and representing ourselves with integrity and authenticity and celebrating each other and not judging one another. If we’re not doing that in our industry, then nobody else has a hope in hell.”
“So, I feel like with playing Mare, maybe we are shifting the dynamics of how leading ladies are seen on screen and that just warms my heart.”