Kate Winslet has revealed how a crew member suggested she sit up straighter to hide her “belly rolls” during the filming of a bikini scene in World War II drama Lee.
Winslet says she brushed off the suggestion because it was right for her character Lee Miller, a photojournalist who goes from shooting for British Vogue to documenting the frontline.
“There’s a bit where Lee’s sitting on a bench in a bikini… And one of the crew came up between takes and said: ‘You might want to sit up straighter.’ So you can’t see my belly rolls? Not on your life! It was deliberate, you know?” she told Harper’s Bazaar UK.
Winslet said she stopped exercising before shooting Lee, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and that she takes pride in her features. “It is my life on my face, and that matters. It wouldn’t occur to me to cover that up,” she said.
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The Oscar-winner added: “I think people know better than to say, ‘You might wanna do something about those wrinkles’ … I’m more comfortable in myself as each year passes. It enables me to allow the opinions of others to evaporate.”
Winslet has long been an advocate for authentic body image. As far back as 2003, she railed against a cover of GQ, which she claimed “digitally altered” her appearance.
“I do not look like that and more importantly I don’t desire to look like that,” she said of the cover. “I actually have a Polaroid that the photographer gave me on the day of the shoot… I can tell you they’ve reduced the size of my legs by about a third. For my money it looks pretty good the way it was taken.”
In 2015, Winslet revealed that she stipulated in a L’Oréal contract that her Lancôme ads do not photoshop her appearance. “I do think we have a responsibility to the younger generation of women. I would always want to be telling the truth about who I am to that generation because they’ve got to have strong leaders,” she said.
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