Kate Winslet is more than an actor…as an Oscar-winning performer, she is one of the most famous movie stars in the entire world. After Titanic made her into a household name, she only grew stronger in her craft, and that’s why we were so shocked when she announced a major career change. Winslet recently revealed that she feels she is “letting down other women” by not directing movies and that she is ready to direct films in the future.

A Decision Years In The Making

However, the award-winning actor was quick to manage fan expectations, saying, “There’s no plans to actually do that in the immediate future; but I do feel that I love being in a room full of actors.” Additionally, Kate Winslet pointed out that this is a decision that has been in the making for many years.

According to the star, she frequently receives the same question when she’s on set: “why aren’t you directing?” She got annoyed by the question because the answers always seemed obvious: Kate Winslet had her daughter, Mia, when she was only 25, and the star knows what a “huge commitment” directing is. As a young mother, “there’s just no way I would have ever been able to do it”

Changing The Culture Of Filmmaking

What, then, has made her change her mind about stepping into the director’s chair? According to Kate Winslet, “the more I’m not doing it now, with the need to change the culture, the more I feel like I’m actually letting down other women by not doing it.” This is a feeling that has been growing inside the actor for some time, and she is now “starting to feel that in quite a loud way.”

One of the reasons that Kate Winslet presumably wants to change the culture of filmmaking is because of how she has been treated by male directors over the years. For example, when Ang Lee directed her in Sense and Sensibility and she asked about her performance, the director simply told her “aww, you’ll get better. I promise you.”

Negative Experience Working With Woody Allen

She had an even more brutal experience with Woody Allen when working on Wonder Wheel in 2017. Despite the fact that she was now an Oscar winner and worldwide celebrity, the acclaimed director was completely unimpressed with Kate Winslet. She claims the feedback he gave her was “do it better, you’re just doing it like a bad actress”.

Wants To Give Better Feedback

As a director, Kate Winslet could offer better feedback to both the women and men on her future sets because of one simple reason: they speak the same language. “There’s a language that you have as actors that you share with each other that is quite unique,” she said. She believes that shared language would make her a more effective director than, say, someone who has never acted at all.

One crucial reason for this is that she knows that actors sometimes need very little guidance in order to bring out the best possible performance. As Kate Winslet put it, “knowing how to say very, very little to an actor…it can land in a meaningful way.” In this way, she could basically hit a sweet spot where she tells her actors exactly what they need to hear without micromanaging an otherwise great performance into the ground.

Similar To Jonathan Frakes

What she says certainly echoes the thoughts of other actors turned directors and how their cast felt. For example, one of the reasons that Jonathan Frakes is the best Star Trek director is that he is intimately acquainted with what it is like to act in these futuristic stories and settings. Even without a real-life universal translator, he is able to speak other actors’ language and get awesome performances out of everyone involved.

Ready To Take Up The Mantle

Kate Winslet has no active plans to direct a film, but she looks like she’s more than ready to step into the big chair. And we wouldn’t be surprised if she eventually takes home another Oscar for directing a hit film. At that point, we can only hope the Titanic star has a short and sweet acceptance speech: “I’m the queen of the world!”