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Jude the Obscure
Original title page of Jude the Obscure
Author(s)	Thomas Hardy
Original title	The Simpletons Hearts Insurgent
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Tragedy
Publication date	1895
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	n/a
Preceded by	Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Followed by	The Well-Beloved

Jude the Obscure, the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, began as a magazine serial and was first published in book form in 1895. Its hero, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The themes in the novel revolve around issues of class, education, religion, and marriage.

The book was burned publicly by William Walsham How, Bishop of Wakefield, in that same year.^[1]

Plot summary[link]

The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a village stonemason in the southern English region of Wessex who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modeled on Oxford. In his spare time while working in his aunt's bakery, he teaches himself Greek and Latin. Before he can try to enter the university, the naïve Jude is manipulated, through a process he later calls erotolepsy, into marrying a rather coarse and superficial local girl, Arabella Donn, who deserts him within two years. By this time, he has abandoned the classics altogether.

After Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later. There, he meets and falls in love with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. Jude shortly introduces Sue to his former schoolteacher, Mr. Phillotson, whom she later marries. Sue is satisfied by the normality of her married life, but quickly finds the relationship an unhappy one; in addition to being in love with Jude, not her husband, she is physically disgusted by her spouse, and, apparently, by sex in general.

Sue eventually leaves Phillotson for Jude. Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship; they are both afraid to get married because their family has a history of tragic unions, and think that being legally bound to one another might destroy their love. Jude eventually convinces Sue to sleep with him and, over the years, they have two children together. They are also bestowed with a child "of an intelligent age" from Jude's first marriage to Arabella, whom Jude did not know about earlier. He is named Jude and nicknamed "Little Father Time" because of his intense seriousness and moroseness.

Jude and Sue are socially ostracized for living together unmarried, especially after the children are born. Jude's employers always dismiss him when they find out, and landlords evict them. Their socially-disturbed boy, "Little Father Time," comes to believe that he and his half-siblings are the source of the family's woes. He murders Sue's two children and commits suicide by hanging. He leaves behind a note that simply reads, "Done because we are too menny."^[2][3] Shortly thereafter, Sue has a miscarriage.

Beside herself with grief and blaming herself for "Little Father Time"'s actions, which were, in part, instigated by a conversation the two had had the previous night, Sue turns to the church that has ostracized her and comes to believe that the children's deaths were divine retribution for her relationship with Jude. Although horrified at the thought of resuming her marriage with Phillotson, she becomes convinced that, for religious reasons, she should never have left him. Arabella discovers Sue's feelings and informs Phillotson, who soon proposes they remarry. This results in Sue leaving Jude for Phillotson. Jude is devastated and remarries Arabella after she plies him with alcohol to once again trick him into marriage.

After one final, desperate visit to Sue in freezing weather, Jude becomes seriously ill and dies within the year. It is revealed that Sue has grown "staid and worn" with Phillotson. Arabella fails to mourn Jude's passing, instead setting the stage to ensnare her next suitor.

Themes[link]

The novel develops multiple intertwined themes. Most controversially, during England's Victorian era, Hardy criticized revered institutions like marriage and Christianity. He also criticizes the bourgeois values associated with marriage through the tragedy of his star-crossed lovers, Jude and Sue, whose attempts to defy social conventions for the sake of love lead to their misery.

Another major thematic focus of the novel is the issue of fixed class boundaries, particularly with regard to access to higher education for students from the working class. Although Jude wishes to attend the university, he can't afford to get his degree and is thereby shut out from having any economic mobility out of the working class. This theme of class was personal for Hardy since he, like Jude, was not able to attend university for financial reasons.

Another parallel between the book's characters/themes and Hardy's actual life experience occurs when Sue becomes obsessed with religion after previously having been indifferent and even hostile towards it. Through this extreme change in the character of Sue, Hardy shows Christianity as an extraordinarily powerful social force that is capable of causing a seemingly independent-minded woman like Sue to be self-immolating and sexually repressed.

Like Sue Bridehead, Hardy's first wife, Emma, went from being free-spirited and fairly indifferent to religion in her youth to becoming obsessively religious as she got older. Since Hardy was always highly critical of organized religion, as Emma became more and more religious, their differing views led to a great deal of tension in their marriage, and this tension was a big factor that led to their increased alienation from one another.

Emma was also very disapproving of Jude the Obscure, in part because of the book's criticisms of religion, but also because she worried that the reading public would believe that the relationship between Jude and Sue directly paralleled her strained relationship with Hardy (which, in a figurative sense, it did).^[4]

Writing[link]

Hardy began making notes for the story in 1887.

Reviews[link]

Called "Jude the Obscene" by at least one reviewer,^[5] Jude the Obscure received a harsh reception from scandalised critics; it is thought largely for this reason that Hardy made the decision to produce only poetry and drama for his remaining 32 years.

Jude was first published under the title The Simpletons; and then Hearts Insurgent in the European and American editions of Harper's New Monthly Magazine from December 1894 until November 1895. The initial, serialised edition was substantially different from the later novelized form. Many minor changes were made because the magazine publishers insisted — for moral reasons. Large portions of the plot were also different.

D. H. Lawrence, an admirer of Hardy, was puzzled by the character of Sue Bridehead, and attempted to analyse her sexual problem in his essay "A Study of Thomas Hardy" (1914).

At least one recent scholar has postulated that Jude borrowed heavily from an earlier novel The Wages of Sin by Lucas Malet.^[6]

Film, TV, theatrical adaptations, cultural references[link]

The novel has been adapted into two major feature films:

• Jude the Obscure (1971),^[7] directed by Hugh David, and starring Robert Powell and Fiona Walker
• Jude (1996),^[8] directed by Michael Winterbottom, and starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet

A two-part musical stage adaptation of "Jude the Obscure" ^[9] by Ian Finley (book), Bruce Benedict (music), Jonathan Fitts (music), and Jerome Davis (lyrics), premiered at Burning Coal Theatre Company in Raleigh, NC in April 2012.

Additionally, "Jude the Obscure" was a long time pseudonymous contributor to the Northern Irish literary magazine The Honest Ulsterman.^[10]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Jude the Obscure

• Jude the Obscure at Project Gutenberg

v t e Works by Thomas Hardy Novels The Poor Man and the Lady (1867) Desperate Remedies (1871) Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) The Hand of Ethelberta (1876) The Return of the Native (1878) The Trumpet-Major (1880) A Laodicean (1881) Two on a Tower (1882) The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) The Woodlanders (1887) Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) Jude the Obscure (1895) The Well-Beloved (1897) Short story collections Wessex Tales (1888) A Group of Noble Dames (1891) Life's Little Ironies (1894) A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913) Individual stories "The Three Strangers" (1883) "A Mere Interlude" (1885) "Alicia's Diary" (1887) "Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1891) "A Tragedy of Two Ambitions" (1894) Poetry collections Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898) Poems of the Past and the Present (1901) Time's Laughingstocks (1909) Poems 1912–13 Satires of Circumstance (1914) Moments of Vision (1917) Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1922) Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925) Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928) Individual poems "The Photograph" (1890) "Neutral Tones" (1898) "The Darkling Thrush" (1901) "The Ruined Maid" (1901) "The Respectable Burgher" (1901) "The Man He Killed" (1902) "A Trampwoman's Tragedy" (1903) "The Convergence of the Twain" (1915) "The Blinded Bird" (1916) Plays The Dynasts (1904–1908)

Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet at the 68th Venice Film Festival, September 2011
Born	Kate Elizabeth Winslet (1975-10-05) 5 October 1975 (age 36) Reading, Berkshire, England
Occupation	Actress, singer
Years active	1991–present
Spouse	Jim Threapleton (m. 1998–2001) «start: (1998)–end+1: (2002)»"Marriage: Jim Threapleton to Kate Winslet" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Kate_Winslet) Sam Mendes (m. 2003–2010) «start: (2003)–end+1: (2011)»"Marriage: Sam Mendes to Kate Winslet" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Kate_Winslet)
Children	2
Relatives	Anna Winslet, Beth Winslet (sisters)

Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is an English actress. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been nominated twice for an Emmy Award for television acting, winning once for her role as Mildred Pierce in the 2011 mini-series of the same name.

Brought up in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received her first notable critical praise. She achieved recognition for her subsequent work in a supporting role in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and for her leading role in Titanic (1997), the highest grossing film at the time, and the highest grossing film of Winslet's career.^[1]

Since 2000, Winslet's performances have continued to draw positive comments from film critics, and she has been nominated for various awards for her work in such films as Quills (2000), Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), The Reader (2008) and Revolutionary Road (2008). Her performance in the last of these prompted New York magazine critic David Edelstein to describe her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation".^[2] The romantic comedy The Holiday and the animated film Flushed Away (both 2006) are among the biggest commercial successes of her career.

Winslet was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2000. She has been included as a vocalist on some soundtracks of works she has performed in, and the single "What If" from the soundtrack for Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), was a hit single in several European countries. Winslet has two children.

Early life[link]

Born in Reading, Berkshire, Winslet is the second of four children born to Sally Anne (née Bridges), a barmaid, and Roger John Winslet, a swimming pool contractor.^[3][4] Her parents were "jobbing actors", which led Winslet to comment that she "didn't have a privileged upbringing" and that their daily life was "very hand to mouth".^[5] Her maternal grandparents, Linda (née Plumb) and Archibald Oliver Bridges, founded and operated the Reading Repertory Theatre,^[5] and her uncle, Robert Bridges, appeared in the original West End production of Oliver!. Her older sister, Anna, and younger sister, Beth, are also actresses.^[5] Her younger brother, Joss, is the only sibling who did not pursue an acting career.^[4]

Winslet began studying drama at the age of 11 at the Redroofs Theatre School,^[6] a co-educational independent school in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where she was head girl.^[7] At the age of 12, Winslet appeared in a television advertisement directed by filmmaker Tim Pope for Sugar Puffs cereal. Pope said her naturalism was "there from the start".^[8]

Career[link]

1991–1997[link]

Winslet's career began on television, with a co-starring role in the BBC children's science fiction serial Dark Season.^[9] This role was followed by appearances in the made-for-TV film Anglo-Saxon Attitudes in 1992, the sitcom Get Back, and an episode of the medical drama Casualty in 1993.^[9]

Winslet at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival

In 1992, Winslet attended a casting call for Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures in London. Winslet auditioned for the part of Juliet Hulme, a teenager who assists in the murder of the mother of her best friend, Pauline Parker (played by Melanie Lynskey). She won the role over 175 other girls.^[10] The film included Winslet's singing debut, and her a cappella version of "Sono Andati", an aria from La Bohème,^[11] was featured on the film's soundtrack.^[12] The film was released to favourable reviews in 1994 and won Jackson and partner Fran Walsh a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.^[13] Winslet was awarded an Empire Award and a London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Actress of the Year for her performance.^[14] The Washington Post writer Desson Thomson commented: "As Juliet, Winslet is a bright-eyed ball of fire, lighting up every scene she’s in. She's offset perfectly by Lynskey, whose quietly smoldering Pauline completes the delicate, dangerous partnership."^[15] Speaking about her experience on a film set as an absolute beginner, Winslet noted: "With Heavenly Creatures, all I knew I had to do was completely become that person. In a way it was quite nice doing [the film] and not knowing a bloody thing."^[16]

The following year, Winslet auditioned for the small but pivotal role of Lucy Steele in the adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, featuring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman.^[17] She was instead cast in the second leading role of Marianne Dashwood.^[17] Director Ang Lee admitted he was initially worried about the way Winslet had attacked her role in Heavenly Creatures and thus required her to exercise t'ai chi, read Austen-era Gothic novels and poetry, and work with a piano teacher to fit the grace of the role.^[17] Budgeted at US$16.5 million ($25.2 million in current year dollars) the film became a financial and critical success, resulting in a worldwide box office total of US$135 million ($205.9 million) and various awards for Winslet, winning her both a BAFTA and a Screen Actors' Guild Award, and nominations for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.^[14][18]

In 1996, Winslet starred in both Jude and Hamlet. In Michael Winterbottom's Jude, based on the Victorian novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, she played Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings who falls in love with her cousin, played by Christopher Eccleston. Acclaimed among critics, it was not a success at the box office, barely grossing US$2 million ($3 million) worldwide.^[19][20] Richard Corliss of Time magazine said "Winslet is worthy of [...] the camera's scrupulous adoration. She's perfect, a modernist ahead of her time [...] and Jude is a handsome showcase for her gifts."^[21] Winslet played Ophelia, Hamlet's drowned lover, in Kenneth Branagh's all star-cast film version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The film garnered largely positive reviews and earned Winslet her second Empire Award.^[14][22]

[edit] Titanic

In mid-1996, Winslet began filming James Cameron's Titanic (1997), alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.^[23] Gwyneth Paltrow, Claire Danes, and Gabrielle Anwar had been considered for the role;^[24][25][26] when they turned it down, Winslet campaigned heavily for it. She sent Cameron daily notes from England, which led Cameron to invite her to Hollywood for auditions. Cameron described the character as "an Audrey Hepburn type" and was initially uncertain about casting Winslet even after her screen test impressed him.^[24] After she screen tested with DiCaprio, Winslet was so thoroughly impressed with him, that she whispered to Cameron, "He's great. Even if you don't pick me, pick him." Winslet sent Cameron a single rose with a card signed "From Your Rose" and lobbied him by phone. "You don't understand!" she pleaded one day when she reached him by mobile phone in his Humvee. "I am Rose! I don't know why you're even seeing anyone else!" Her persistence, as well as her talent, eventually convinced him to cast her in the role.^[24]

Cast as the sensitive seventeen-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater, a fictional first-class socialite who survives the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, Winslet's experience was emotionally demanding.^[27] "Titanic was totally different and nothing could have prepared me for it. ... We were really scared about the whole adventure. ... Jim [Cameron] is a perfectionist, a real genius at making movies. But there was all this bad press before it came out, and that was really upsetting."^[27] Against expectations, the film went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time, grossing more than US$1.843 billion ($2.7 billion) in box-office receipts worldwide,^[28] and transformed Winslet into a commercial movie star.^[29] Subsequently, she was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, winning a European Film Award.^[14][30]

1998–2003[link]

Shot prior to the release of Titanic, Hideous Kinky, a low-budget hippie romance, was Winslet's sole film of 1998.^[31] Winslet had rejected offers to play the leading roles in Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in favour of the role of a young English mother named Julia who moves with her daughters from London to Morocco hoping to start a new life.^[31][32] The film garnered generally mixed reviews and received only limited distribution,^[33] resulting in a worldwide gross of US$5 million ($7 million).^[34] Despite the success of Titanic, the next film Winslet opted to star in was Holy Smoke! (1999), featuring Harvey Keitel, another low-budget project—much to the chagrin of her agents, who felt "miserable" about her preference of arthouse films.^[16][27] Feeling pressured, Winslet has said she "never saw Titanic as a springboard for bigger films or bigger pay cheques", knowing that "it could have been that, but would have destroyed [her]."^[35] The same year, she voiced Brigid in the computer animated film Faeries.^[36]

In 2000, Winslet appeared in the period piece Quills with Geoffrey Rush and Joaquin Phoenix, a film inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade. The actress served as somewhat of a "patron saint" of the film for being the first big name to back it, accepting the role of a chambermaid in the asylum and the courier of the Marquis' manuscripts to the underground publishers.^[37] Well-received by critics, the film garnered numerous accolades for Winslet, including nominations for SAG and Satellite Awards.^[14] The film was a modest arthouse success, averaging US$27,709 ($37,395) per screen its debut weekend, and eventually grossing US$18 million ($24.3 million) internationally.^[38]

In 2001's Enigma, Winslet played a young woman who finds herself falling for a brilliant young World War II code breaker, played by Dougray Scott.^[39] It was her first war film, and Winslet regarded "making Enigma a brilliant experience" as she was five months pregnant at the time of the shoot, forcing some tricky camera work from the director Michael Apted.^[39] Generally well-received,^[40] Winslet was awarded a British Independent Film Award for her performance,^[14] and A. O. Scott of The New York Times described Winslet as "more crush-worthy than ever."^[41] In the same year she appeared in Richard Eyre's critically acclaimed film Iris, portraying novelist Iris Murdoch. Winslet shared her role with Judi Dench, with both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life.^[42] Subsequently, each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following year, earning Winslet her third nomination.^[14] Also in 2001, she voiced the character Belle in the animated motion picture Christmas Carol: The Movie, based on the Charles Dickens classic novel. For the film, Winslet recorded the song "What If", which was released in November 2001 as a single^[43] with proceeds donated to two of Winslet's favourite charities, the N.S.P.C.C. and the Sargeant Cancer Foundation for Children.^[43][44] A Europe-wide top ten hit, it reached number one in Austria, Belgium and Ireland,^[45] number six on the UK Singles Chart,^[46] and won the 2002 OGAE Song Contest.^[47]

Her next film role was in the 2003 drama The Life of David Gale, in which she played an ambitious journalist who interviews a death-sentenced professor, played by Kevin Spacey, in his final weeks before execution. The film underperformed at international box offices, garnering only half of its US$ 50,000,000 budget,^[48] and generating mostly critical reviews,^[49] with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it a "silly movie."^[50]

2004–2006[link]

Following The Life of David Gale, Winslet appeared with Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), a neosurrealistic indie-drama by French director Michel Gondry. In the film, she played the role of Clementine Kruczynski, a chatty, spontaneous and somewhat neurotic woman, who decides to have all memories of her ex-boyfriend erased from her mind.^[51] The role was a departure from her previous roles, with Winslet revealing in an interview with Variety that she was initially upended about her casting in the film: "This was not the type of thing I was being offered [...] I was just thrilled that there was something he had seen in me, in spite of the corsets, that he thought was going to work for Clementine.”^[52] The film was a critical and financial success.^[53] Winslet received rave reviews for her Academy Award-nominated performance, which Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described as "electrifying and bruisingly vulnerable."^[54]

Winslet at the 61st British Academy Film Awards.

Her final film in 2004 was Finding Neverland. The story of the production focused on Scottish writer J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) and his platonic relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Winslet), whose sons inspired him to pen the classic play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. During promotion of the film, Winslet noted of her portrayal "It was very important for me in playing Sylvia that I was already a mother myself, because I don’t think I could have played that part if I didn’t know what it felt like to be a parent and have those responsibilities and that amount of love that you give to a child [...] and I've always got a baby somewhere, or both of them, all over my face."^[55] The film received favourable reviews and proved to be an international success, becoming Winslet's highest-grossing film since Titanic with a total of $118 million worldwide.^[56][57]

In 2005, Winslet appeared in an episode of BBC's comedy series Extras as a satirical version of herself. While dressed as a nun, she was portrayed giving phone sex tips to the romantically challenged character of Maggie.^[58] Her performance in the episode led to her first nomination for an Emmy Award.^[14] In Romance & Cigarettes (2005), a musical romantic comedy written and directed by John Turturro, she played the character Tula, described by Winslet as "a slut, someone who’s essentially foulmouthed and has bad manners and really doesn’t know how to dress."^[59] Hand-picked by Turturro, who was impressed with her display of dancing ability in Holy Smoke!, Winslet was praised for her performance,^[59] which included her interpretation of Connie Francis's "Scapricciatiello (Do You Love Me Like You Kiss Me)".^[60] Derek Elley of Variety wrote: "Onscreen less, but blessed with the showiest role, filthiest one-liners, [and] a perfect Lancashire accent that's comical enough in the Gotham setting Winslet throws herself into the role with an infectious gusto."^[61]

After declining an invitation to appear in Woody Allen's film Match Point (2005), Winslet stated that she wanted to be able to spend more time with her children.^[62] She began 2006 with All the King's Men, featuring Sean Penn and Jude Law. Winslet played the role of Anne Stanton, the childhood sweetheart of Jack Burden (Law). The film was critically and financially unsuccessful.^[63][64] Todd McCarthy of Variety summed it up as "overstuffed and fatally miscast [...] Absent any point of engagement to become involved in the characters, the film feels stillborn and is unlikely to stir public excitement, even in an election year."^[65]

Winslet fared far better when she joined the cast of Todd Field's Little Children, playing Sarah Pierce, a bored housewife who has a torrid affair with a married neighbour, played by Patrick Wilson. Both her performance and the film received rave reviews; A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality—even more than its considerable beauty—that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. The result is a film that is challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about. Ms. Winslet, as fine an actress as any working in movies today, registers every flicker of Sarah’s pride, self-doubt and desire, inspiring a mixture of recognition, pity and concern that amounts, by the end of the movie, to something like love. That Ms. Winslet is so lovable makes the deficit of love in Sarah’s life all the more painful."^[66] For her work in the film, she was honoured with a Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year from BAFTA/LA, a Los Angeles-based offshoot of the BAFTA Awards.^[67] and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, and at 31, became the youngest actress to ever garner five Oscar nominations.^[68]

She followed Little Children with a role in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy The Holiday, also starring Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black. In it she played Iris, a British woman who temporarily exchanges homes with an American woman (Diaz). Released to a mixed reception by critics,^[69] the film became Winslet's biggest commercial success in nine years, grossing more than US$205 million worldwide.^[70] Also in 2006, Winslet provided her voice for several smaller projects. In the CG-animated Flushed Away, she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Roddy (Hugh Jackman) escape from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. A critical and commercial success, the film collected US$177,665,672 at international box offices.^[71]

2007–present[link]

Winslet at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival

In 2007, Winslet reunited with Leonardo DiCaprio to film Revolutionary Road (2008), directed by her husband at the time, Sam Mendes. Winslet had suggested that both should work with her on a film adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates after reading the script by Justin Haythe.^[72] Resulting in both "a blessing and an added pressure" on-set, the reunion was her first experience working with Mendes.^[73] Portraying a couple in a failing marriage in the 1950s, DiCaprio and Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the suburbs to prepare themselves for the film,^[73] which earned them favorable reviews.^[74] In his review of the film, David Edelstein of New York magazine stated that "[t]here isn’t a banal moment in Winslet’s performance—not a gesture, not a word. Is Winslet now the best English-speaking film actress of her generation? I think so."^[2] Winslet was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance, her seventh nomination from the Golden Globes.^[14]

Winslet at the 2007 BAFTAs

Also released in late 2008, the film competed against Winslet's other project, a film adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry and featuring Ralph Fiennes and David Kross in supporting roles. Originally the first choice for her role, she was initially not able to take on the role due to a scheduling conflict with Revolutionary Road, and Nicole Kidman replaced her.^[75] A month after filming began, however, Kidman left the film due to her pregnancy before filming of her had begun, enabling Winslet to rejoin the film.^[75] Employing a German accent, Winslet portrayed a former Nazi concentration camp guard who has an affair with a teenager (Kross) who, as an adult, witnesses her war crimes trial.^[76] She later said the role was difficult for her, as she was naturally unable "to sympathise with an SS guard."^[77] Because the film required full frontal nudity, a merkin was made for her. In an interview for Allure she related how she refused to use it: "Guys, I am going to have to draw the line at a pubic wig,..."^[78][79] While the film garnered mixed reviews in general,^[80] Winslet received favorable reviews for her performance.^[80] The following year, she earned her sixth Academy Award nomination and went on to win the Best Actress award, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors' Guild Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.^[14]

In 2011, Winslet headlined in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, a small screen adaptation of James M. Cain's 1941 novel of the same name, directed by Todd Haynes.^[81] Co-starring Guy Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood, she portrayed a self-sacrificing mother during the Great Depression who finds herself separated from her husband and falling in love with a new man, all the while trying to earn her narcissistic daughter's love and respect. Broadcast to moderate ratings,^[82] the five-part series earned generally favourable reviews,^[83] with Salon.com calling it a "quiet, heartbreaking masterpiece".^[84] Winslet won an Emmy Award,^[85] a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film,^[86] and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for her performance.^[87]

Also in 2011, Winslet appeared in Steven Soderbergh's disaster film Contagion, featuring an ensemble cast consisting of Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law. The thriller follows the rapid progress of a lethal indirect contact transmission virus that kills within days. Winslet portrayed an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer who becomes infected with the disease over the course of her investigation.^[88] Winslet's other 2011 project, Roman Polanski's Carnage, premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival. An adaptation of the play God of Carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza, the black comedy follows two sets of parents who meet up to talk after their children have been in a fight that day at school. Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz co-star.^[89] For her performance Winslet received a second nomination by the Hollywood Foreign Press that year.

In June 2011, it was announced that Winslet has been cast alongside Josh Brolin in Jason Reitman's adaptation of Joyce Maynard's 2009 novel Labor Day.^[90]

In 2012, Winslet's audiobook performance of Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin was released at Audible.com.^[91] Audiofile Magazine's review said, "Kate Winslet reads as though she is relishing every morsel of the drama…She clearly loves the book, and her pleasure in the text is infectious…she grabs listeners and doesn’t let go."^[92]

Personal life[link]

Winslet in Paris at the César Awards 2012.

While on the set of Dark Season, Winslet met actor and writer Stephen Tredre, with whom she had a four-and-a-half-year relationship.^[93] Winslet and Tredre remained close after their separation in 1995.^[94] He died of bone cancer during the opening week of Titanic, causing her to miss the film's Los Angeles premiere to attend his funeral in London.^[95] She and Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio have remained close friends since the filming.^[96]

On 22 November 1998, Winslet married director Jim Threapleton, whom she met while on the set of Hideous Kinky in 1997.^[97][98] They have a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton,^[98] who was born on 12 October 2000 in London.^[97] Winslet and Threapleton divorced on 13 December 2001.^[99]

Following her separation from Threapleton, Winslet began a relationship with director Sam Mendes,^[99] and she married him on 24 May 2003 on the island of Anguilla.^[97] Their son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003 in New York City.^[97] Winslet and Mendes announced their separation in March 2010^[100] and are divorced.^{[101][102][103][104]}

Mendes was scheduled to fly on American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked on 11 September 2001 and subsequently crashed into the Pentagon.^[105] In October 2001, Winslet was on a flight with her daughter, Mia, when a passenger who claimed to be a terrorist stood up and shouted, "We are all going to die".^[105] As a result of these incidents, Winslet and Mendes never flew together on the same aircraft, as they feared leaving their children parentless.^[105]

Winslet's weight fluctuations over the years have been well documented by the media.^[93][97] She has been outspoken about her refusal to allow Hollywood to dictate her weight.^[96][106] In February 2003, the British edition of GQ magazine published photographs of Winslet that had been digitally altered to make her look dramatically thinner.^[97] Winslet issued a statement that the alterations were made without her consent, saying, "I just didn't want people to think I was a hypocrite and that I'd suddenly lost 30 lbs or whatever".^[107] GQ subsequently issued an apology.^[106] She won a libel suit in 2009 against the British tabloid The Daily Mail after it printed that she had lied about her exercise regime.^[108] Winslet stated that she had requested an apology to demonstrate her commitment to the views that she has always expressed regarding women's body issues, namely that women should accept their appearance with pride.^[108]

Winslet narrated the documentary A Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism, which was generally released on 24 September 2010, after airing on HBO in April of the same year. Her involvement in the documentary led to her founding the non-profit organisation, the Golden Hat Foundation, whose mission is to eliminate barriers for people with autism.^[109][110] In 2011, Winslet received the Yo Dona award for Best Humanitarian Work for her work with the Golden Hat.^[111]

Also in 2010, Winslet narrated a video for PETA, encouraging chefs to remove foie gras from their menus and asking consumers to boycott restaurants that serve it.^[112]

Awards and nominations[link]

Winslet won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader (2008). She won two Golden Globe Awards in the same year: Best Actress (Drama) for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader. She has won two BAFTA Awards: Best Actress for The Reader, and Best Supporting Actress for Sense and Sensibility (1995). She has earned a total of six Academy Award nominations, nine Golden Globe nominations, and seven BAFTA nominations.^{[106][113][114]}

She has received numerous awards from other organisations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for Iris (2001) and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Sense and Sensibility and The Reader. Premiere magazine named her portrayal of Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) as the 81st greatest film performance of all time.^[115]

Winslet has been selected for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.^[116]

Academy Award nomination milestones[link]

Winslet at the 81st Academy Awards in February 2009

Winslet was 26 when she received her third Academy Award nomination, for Iris, just missing the mark of Natalie Wood, who received her third nomination at age 25.^[117] She set the mark as the youngest actor to receive five nominations, at age 31, for Little Children (2006). She surpassed Bette Davis, who was 33 when she received her fifth nomination for her performance in The Little Foxes (1941).^[118] With her Best Actress nomination for The Reader, Winslet became the youngest actor to receive six Oscar nominations. At age 33, Winslet passed the mark Davis, one year older, set with Now, Voyager (1942).^[119]

Winslet received Academy Award nominations as the younger versions of the characters played by fellow nominees Gloria Stuart, as Rose, in Titanic (1997)^[120] and Judi Dench, as Iris Murdoch, in Iris.^[121] These are the only instances of the younger and older versions of a character in the same film both yielding Academy Award nominations, thus making Winslet the only actor to twice share an Oscar nomination with another for portraying the same character.^[120]

When she was not nominated for her work in Revolutionary Road, Winslet became only the second actress to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) without getting an Oscar nomination for the same performance (Shirley MacLaine was the first for Madame Sousatzka (1988), and she won the Golden Globe in a three-way tie). Academy rules allow an actor to receive no more than one nomination in a given category; as the Academy nominating process determined that Winslet's work in The Reader would be considered a lead performance—unlike the Golden Globes, which considered it a supporting performance—she could not also receive a Best Actress nomination for Revolutionary Road.^[122]

Awards for other work[link]

In 2000, Winslet won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for Listen To the Storyteller.^[123][124] She was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for playing herself in a 2005 episode of Extras.^[125] At the 2011 Primetime Emmy Awards, Winslet won the Best Actress in Miniseries or TV Movie award for her role as the titular character in Mildred Pierce.

Filmography[link]

References[link]