Kate Winslet says she coped with media intrusion through "a good meal and a good poo"

Kate Winslet has spoken candidly about the “appalling” level of media intrusion she experienced after becoming a global star following her role as Rose in James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the actor and director described being relentlessly followed by paparazzi and subjected to invasive surveillance.

“It was horrific,” Winslet said, recalling how journalists tapped her phone, rifled through her rubbish and even questioned local shopkeepers about her purchases in an attempt to determine “what diet I was on or wasn’t on.”

The scrutiny, she explained, came at a time when she was already struggling with her body image. While filming Titanic in her early 20s, Winslet said she “wasn’t in a particularly good shape” mentally when it came to her appearance. Although the experience of making the film was “incredible,” she said her world was “totally turned upside down” once it was released.

“I wasn’t ready for that world,” she said.

Winslet revealed that negative comments about her body began long before Titanic. As a child, she was nicknamed “blubber” by classmates, and later a drama teacher told her she would have to “settle for the fat girl parts” if she wanted to pursue acting. Between the ages of 15 and 19, she said she was “on and off” dieting and by the end was “barely eating.”

“It was really unhealthy,” she said.

After Titanic became a worldwide phenomenon, Winslet said she frequently saw herself on magazine covers accompanied by what she described as “awful, terrible, actually abusive names.”

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

Support from friends and neighbours helped her cope during that time. Winslet recalled a neighbouring couple who would leave her “a bowl of steaming pasta and a little glass of red wine” on the garden wall between their homes.

She also spoke about seeing heavily edited images of herself in magazines, something she publicly challenged in the early 2000s. Reflecting on those photos, she said: “I don’t look like this. My stomach isn’t flat like that. My legs are not that long, my boobs are not that big… What the hell?”

“I didn’t want any young woman, even just one, to look at that image and think, ‘Oh my God, I want to look like that.’ That’s not me,” she added.

Winslet said she experienced another wave of media intrusion during her divorce from her second husband, director Sam Mendes, in 2010. Paparazzi followed her in New York while she was with her two young children, pressing her for answers about the breakup.

“You just keep your mouth closed, you put your head down, and you keep walking,” she said. “And you try and put your hands over your children’s ears. You lean on your friends, you just keep going.”

Looking back, Winslet said she now handles public scrutiny very differently. Reflecting on how she copes today, she joked that her remedies include “a good meal, a shared conversation, a nice cup of coffee, a bit of Radiohead and a good poo.”

“You know, life’s all the better for those things,” she said.

Now preparing for her directorial debut, Goodbye June, written by her son Joe Anders, Winslet also addressed how women are still spoken to differently in the film industry. She said she has heard comments that “would never be said” to a male director.

“They might say things like, ‘Don’t forget to be confident in your choices,’” she said. “And I want to sort of say, ‘Don’t talk to me about confidence.’”

Her response now?

“Shut up,” she said with a laugh.