(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 7 November 2025 1:00, UK
Like many of her peers, Kate Winslet struggles to watch herself on screen.
In fact, Winslet’s displeasure with catching herself in the shoes of another character is so strong that she feels a visceral reaction whenever she’s subjected to it. And it’s not just because she feels uncomfortable, it’s the fact that she’s also anticipating a realisation one day that, after all this time, she has no acting skill whatsoever.
As she admitted back in 2005, “Sometimes I’m scared that I’m going to be hit with this awful realisation that I’ve been bad all these years.”
Detailing further, Winslet went on, “I’d rather be oblivious and that way I could still try to get better, as opposed to being depressed about how crap I was. Which is a really twisted thing to say. But it’s true. It’s confronting.”
It was probably a struggle, therefore, to agree to Vanity Fair’s journey down memory lane last year when she was subjected to rewatching scenes from some of her most iconic films, including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Regime, and, of course, Titanic. However, this time around, it became clear that Winslet’s own disenchantment with some of her hits – Titanic included – had more to do with disillusionment than accidentally finding out that she’s bad at acting.
With the James Cameron blockbuster in particular, Winslet recalled a wardrobe struggle during the famous bow “I’m flying” scene, with no connection whatsoever to the otherwise emotional romance unfolding in the scene itself. As someone who was there, it’s clear there’s no mythology to feel especially fantastical about when her experience overshadows the story and legacy, plus the added haunt of that song that follows her to this day.
Kate Winslet in 2011. (Credits: Far Out / Andrea Raffin)
It might also be a dosage of British dryness, but Winslet seems the most sceptical of moments that took audiences by surprise. She might take issue with the basic act of watching herself on screen, but what especially irks her are one-offs that she can’t seem to escape from. One example of this, as you might have guessed, was her unexpected hit, ‘What If’, recorded and solidified with a yearly seasonal resurgence for the film Christmas Carol: The Movie.
A few years back, Greg James playfully reminded her of its success, made her watch part of the video, and urged her to open up about how it came about in the first place. “I really do hate you,” she joked. “I had the whole story behind that. So, I provided the voice for an animated version of A Christmas Carol, and the producers come to me, and they said, ‘Oh, we’d like to give your character a song.’ I said, ‘That’s a nice idea,’ and they said, ‘Would you like to sing it?’ I said, ‘Well, I can sing a bit, I’ll give it a go, and if you think it’s crap, I really don’t mind, if you just ditch it and get a proper person to do it.’”
She then said they wanted to release the song, which she agreed to on the condition that all proceeds would go to charity. She hadn’t anticipated the fact that people would misinterpret the project as her launching a music career when she’d known all along it was just a one-off – and one that would come back to haunt her time and time again.
“Watching myself on screen is one of my worst things anyway,” she told James after repeatedly asking him (lightheartedly) to “turn it off, turn it off!”
She went on, “But singing and watching myself has got to be up there. I’ll sometimes go into restaurants and the restaurant will think, ‘Surely she’d love it if we played either that or [Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’]. […] I just expect it.”
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