Kate Winslet: I felt bullied after Titanic

Kate Winslet felt “bullied” after she shot to fame following her role in ‘Titanic’.

The 45-year-old actress achieved global stardom when she took on a lead role as Rose DeWitt Bukater in the 1997 romance movie, and has said she felt forced into “self-protective mode” as soon as the film was released, because “being famous” meant she was subjected to “a lot of personal phyal scrutiny”.

She said: “I went into self-protective mode right away [after ‘Titanic’ came out. It was like night and day from one day to the next. I was subject to a lot of personal phyal scrutiny, I was criticized a lot and the British press were quite unkind to me.

“I felt bullied, if I’m honest. I remember thinking, ‘This is horrible and I hope it passes’ – it did definitely pass but it made me realize that, if that’s what being famous was, I was not ready to be famous, definitely not.”

Although Kate was already a BAFTA-winning actress thanks to her 1995 role in ‘Sense and Sensibility’, it was ‘Titanic’ that took her fame to the next level.

And Kate was so put off by the negative sides of fame, that after the release of ‘Titanic’, she chose to shun blockbuster productions in favour of small independent films.

She added to the ‘WTF’ podcast with Marc Maron: “I was still learning how to act, I felt I wasn’t ready to do lots of big Hollywood jobs. I didn’t want to make mistakes and blow it, I wanted to be in it for the long game. I strategically tried to find small things so I could understand the craft a bit better and maintain some degree of privacy and dignity.”

Meanwhile, Kate revealed last year she decided to become an actress whilst sat on the toilet when she was just five years old.

She recalled: “I was sitting on the toilet. Truly.

“I could just hear the sounds of the household. I had three siblings and my parents. It was a very small house. They didn’t have much money, and the walls were paper-thin.”