Kate Winslet recalls how her agent got demeaning calls when she was a young actor: ‘How’s her weight?’

Kate Winslet is opening up about handling industry fixation about an actor having to look a certain way. The Academy Award and Emmy winner revealed in a recent interview how as an young actor she was told to settle for “fat girl” parts, and even her agent would receive the same question multiple times, “How’s her weight?” (Also read: James Cameron reveals Kate Winslet was ‘traumatised’ after filming Titanic: ‘The scale of production…’)

The Mare of Easttown actor marked her film debut with the leading role of murderess Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson’s 1994 crime film Heavenly Creatures. At the age of 22, she shot to worldwide fame and success with James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), where she starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. “When I was younger my agent would get calls saying, ‘How’s her weight?’ I kid you not.” the actor recalled, admitting how difficult it was to read what the media had to say about her. “It was hard enough having the flipping News of the World on my doorstep, but that doesn’t even cut it now. That phrase about ‘today’s news being tomorrow’s fish and chip paper’ doesn’t exist,” she said.

Now after decades of notable performances, Kate is opening up about the industry standards, which she faced as a young performer in an interview with The Sunday Times. “It can be extremely negative,” the actor said about the pressures that female actors have to face. “People are subject to scrutiny that is more than a young, vulnerable person can cope with. But in the film industry it is really changing,” she said, adding that the shift was heartwarming.

Kate revealed that now she is extremely careful “about being that actor who moves their face and has a body that jiggles,” and that she chooses roles where she can allow herself to be as close to the truth as possible. “I make each decision with integrity,” she said, “because if I don’t I’ll be shit.” The actor joins her Titanic director on his next, Avatar: The Way of Water, which releases in theaters on December 16.