Kate Winslet Says 1st Intimate Experiences Were With Women

Kate Winslet is opening up about her early dating experiences.

The Oscar winner, 50, talked about her first-ever film role in 1994’s Heavenly Creatures during a recent appearance on the “Team Deakins” podcast and shared how her own curiosity as a teenager helped her understand her character.

In the biographical film, Winslet and Melanie Lynskey played real-life teenagers Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, whose obsessive relationship with each other ultimately resulted in them murdering Parker’s mother.

“I’ll share something I’ve never shared before. I mean, some of my first, kind of, intimate experiences as a young teen were actually with girls,” Winslet said on the Wednesday, December 24, episode of acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins’ podcast. “Like, I’d kissed a few girls, I’d kissed a few boys, but I wasn’t particularly evolved in either direction.”

She continued, “At that stage in my life, I certainly was curious, and I think there was something about the really intense connection that those two women had that I profoundly understood.”

“I was so immediately sucked into the vortex of that world they were in, that obviously became horrendously damaging to both of them and they had huge insecurities and vulnerabilities,” Winslet said.

“They murdered someone because they truly believed that that person was preventing them from being together. And whilst, of course, I couldn’t truly understand that part, I could certainly understand how influenced a young person’s mind can become by just one other person,” the actress added.

Heavenly Creatures, cowritten and directed by Lord of the Rings’ Peter Jackson, was a critical hit and nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 1995 Academy Awards.

In 2023, Lynskey, 48, revealed how losing touch with Winslet, with whom she described having a “very intense” friendship while shooting Heavenly Creatures, after the film left her heartbroken.

“When I lost touch with Kate, it was more heartbreaking than some breakups that I’ve had,” the Yellowjackets actress said during an April 2023 interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “It was so painful and it wasn’t like anything happened. It’s just she became a gigantic, international movie star and she didn’t have a lot of time and then, suddenly, she’d be in Los Angeles and not have time.”

“It happens in relationships. People kind of drift apart, but that was so painful for me,” Lynskey said, noting that she’s had similar experiences with other costars she grew fond of. “I did this movie with this actor and when we were finished I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m just so happy that I met you and we have this friendship,’ and she said, ‘Yeah, I’m not friends with actors. I don’t stay friends with actors.’ And I was just like, ‘What?’ I was so shocked by it.”

“I was so sensitive. I was always so injured by losing these great loves I was having. You know, It got easier,” Lynskey added.