Kate Winslet is one of Hollywood’s most respected actresses. Not least because she can turn her hand at everything from fluffy rom-coms, to gritty dramas.
But last week, the British born star admitted things could have been very different for her, if she’d listened to the high-school bullies who said she was never good enough.
Speaking at We Day UK, the 41-year-old said: “They called me Blubber.
“I wasn’t the prettiest…I was even told that I might be lucky in my acting if I was happy to settle for the fat-girl parts.”
But her big break came when the budding actress was offered the role of Rose Dawson in blockbuster The Titanic, alongside Leonardo Dicaprio.
“The most unlikely candidate — Kate from the sandwich shop in Reading — suddenly acting in one of the biggest movies ever made. You can be from anywhere and you can do anything, believe it. It is possible to overcome your fears.”
We Day UK is an event that puts together A List performers, world renowned speakers and tens of thousands of youths, to celebrate action that transforms communities and lives.
Kate isn’t the only star to have spoken out about her past experience with bullying.
Victoria Beckham was taunted as a youngster for being different.
“They were literally picking things up out of the puddles and throwing them at me, and I just stood there, on my own. No one was with me,” she previously told ELLE Magazine.
“I didn’t have any friends. People would push me around, say they were going to beat me up after school, chase me. It was miserable, my whole schooling, miserable. I tried to be friends with people, but I didn’t fit in. So I kept myself to myself.”
Jessica Alba also told reporters at the Daily Mirror that she used to have to be walked to school to avoid bullies.
“I was bullied so badly my dad used to have to walk me into school so I didn’t get attacked. I’d eat my lunch in the nurses’ office so I didn’t have to sit with the other girls. Apart from my being mixed race, my parents didn’t have money so I never had the cute clothes or the cool back pack.”