Kate Winslet shares how she coped with unwanted attention

Kate Winslet believes life is “better” with a “good meal and a good poo” and they were among the things that helped her cope with unwanted attention.

Kate Winslet believes life is “better” with a “good meal and a good poo”.

The Goodbye June director-and-actress – who has Mia, 25, with first husband Jim Threapleton, Joe, 22, with second spouse Sam Mendes, and Bear, 12, with husband Edward Abel Smith – has recalled the “horrific” intrustion into her personal life when she was younger and found small ways to find joy while coping with the scrutiny amid the breakdown of one of her marriages.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that she coped with the attention thanks to “a good meal, a shared conversation, a nice cup of coffee, a bit of Radiohead and a good poo”.

She added: “You know, life’s all the better for those things.”

Kate admitted she wasn’t “in a particularly good shape” mentally about her body while filming Titanic in her early 20s and her world was “totally turned upside down” once it hit cinemas and she became a global star, leaving her “terrified” to sleep because of the intrusion into hher life.

She said: “I wasn’t ready for that world.

“It was horrific.

“There were people tapping my phone. They were just everywhere. And I was just on my own. I was terrified to go to sleep.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the Oscar-winning star told how she was told to settle for the “fat-girl parts” by a drama teacher if she wanted to make it as an actress.

She said: “I was a little bit stocky, when I did start taking it much more seriously and got a child agent I really remember vividly a drama teacher … and she said to me, ‘Well, darling, you’ll have a career if you’re ready to settle for the fat girl parts.’

“Look at me now. It’s appalling the things people say to children.”

And Kate believes there is “so much we still have to unlearn” about how “we speak to women in film,” and claimed she was told things as a first-time director that would never be said to a man.

She said: “So they might say things like, ‘Don’t forget to be confident in your choices.’

“And I want to sort of say, ‘Don’t talk to me about confidence,’ because if that’s one thing I haven’t ever lacked, actually, it’s exactly that. That person wouldn’t say that to a man.”