Kate’s
next act
As she makes her directorial debut, Kate Winslet tells
Otegha Uwagba why now was the right time to make the leap
Kate Winslet probably could’ve done this sooner. Direct, that is – or at least, that’s the theory I put to her as we sit in a tapas restaurant near London Bridge, working our way through a plate of jamón Ibérico. She has just flown back from LA the night before, where she’d been doing press for her new movie, Goodbye June. A bittersweet drama about a terminal cancer diagnosis that brings four adult children to their mother’s bedside ahead of Christmas Day, it is also Winslet’s directorial debut.
But given her long and storied career – Oscar winner; enough BAFTA, Golden Globe and Emmy trophies to sink the Titanic; not to mention her recent foray into producing with 2023 Lee Miller biopic Lee – I’m curious as to why she’s waited so long to step behind the camera. Her answer? She wanted to be sure she could do the monumental task of directing a movie justice. The timing had to be right.
‘I never would have done it if I wasn’t [ready]. I’m just not the kind of person who does things by halves,’ she says – and there is also a more prosaic truth to reckon with. ‘The reality is I couldn’t have done it before – I was raising a family, you know?’
Winslet has three children, daughter Mia, 25, and sons Joe, 21 (more on him in a second), and 12-year-old Bear. ‘Part of the reason why there are so few female directors – even though it’s changing a bit – is because we have children. It’s just not the easiest thing to walk away and go to work.’ As a director, she reminds me, ‘you’re not just doing the pre-production period and shooting the film. It’s everything! As soon as we wrapped I went straight into the edit, the sound mix, the music record… I was across absolutely all of it.’ It’s a predicament most working mothers know all too well, and one that even Winslet – number one on the call sheet, and with an abundance of resources available to her – has had to grapple with.
PHOTOGRAPHS Alexi Lubomirski
STYLING Cheryl Konteh
Published on 8th December 2025
Blazer, £1,290, and trousers, £790, both Victoria Beckham at Selfridges; earrings, as before; bracelet, £8,600, De Beers; black ring with diamond, £130, Laura Vann
It’s ironic, then, that while Goodbye June found her at precisely the point in time where her family life could accommodate directing a movie, Winslet’s directorial debut has actually turned out to be very much a family affair. The screenplay was written by her son, Joe Anders (from her marriage to director Sam Mendes), who transposed his own experience of having watched his grandmother (and Winslet’s mother) pass away in 2017 to the fictional family depicted in Goodbye June.
Having asked his mother for feedback on an early draft, Winslet surprised him by telling him she thought this – his first attempt at a script – was not only good enough to be made into an actual film, but that she also wanted to produce and star in it. From there, mother and son sat down together and created a dream cast list: Helen Mirren as the titular June, Timothy Spall as her hapless husband and Toni Collette, Andrea Riseborough and Johnny Flynn as the dysfunctional siblings orbiting Winslet’s Julia. And to her surprise, she tells me with a laugh, when the casting process began, ‘All of our dream, wish-list actors all bloody said yes!’
It was when the question came up of who might direct the film, though, that Winslet says, ‘I suddenly realised I couldn’t let it go.’ Knowing that she and Anders would lose control of a project that felt so deeply personal to both of them if an external director was brought on, she felt compelled to direct the film as well.
Not everyone could work so closely with family, but Winslet had no trepidation about doing so. ‘We have a really, really great relationship,’ she says emphatically. Indeed, both Anders and Winslet’s daughter, actor Mia Threapleton, seem intent on entering the family business, with Mia having acted in the BAFTA award-winning I Am Ruth (alongside her mother), and more recently in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme. So what advice has Winslet given them about navigating the entertainment industry? ‘Just be who you are. Be a good person, be yourself. Be grateful. Be humble. Do the work... Never be late.’ No doubt the approach that’s given Winslet herself such enduring success.
I’M NOT THE KIND OF PERSON WHO DOES THINGS BY HALVES
A recurrent theme of Goodbye June, and of our conversation, is what Winslet frequently refers to as ‘the juggle of it all’ – that is, the pressures of being a career-minded woman with a family to consider. Winslet’s character Julia is the quintessential overburdened middle-aged woman: raising young children, supporting elderly parents, managing a demanding job – and it’s a scenario that Winslet herself knows well.
‘What I loved about the character of Julia is that she’s like so many women I know – and like myself at times. Even though I’ve managed to somehow have a career as an actress where I’m very rarely away [from the kids], that doesn’t change the fact that the working day is very long. Sometimes I’ve left the house before the kids have woken up and raced to make it back for bedtime, but sometimes I miss it. I’ve absolutely had moments of feeling unbearable guilt.’ She hopes Julia will feel familiar to audiences, working mothers in particular. ‘Hopefully [Julia] will strike a chord with women, who go, “Yeah, that’s me.”’
And so what now for Winslet? ‘I would really, really love to direct again,’ she says. ‘I loved it,’ she adds emphatically – but she is also philosophical. ‘If I never get to do it again, at least I did this now, at this time in my life, as a woman, as a mother. As somebody who has spent 33 years advocating for other women, being able to step in and play my part has honestly meant so much to me.’
Coat, price on request, Mugler; shoes, £675, Jimmy Choo; tights, £35, Wolford; watch, £1,500, Longines; earrings, £680, Lisa Eldridge
Above right: Blazer, £920, and trousers, £430, both Rohe;
bodysuit, £365, La Perla; shoes, £675, Jimmy Choo; rings: (on right hand), £4,900, and (middle finger, left hand) £6,250, both Messika; bracelet, as before
Blazer, £1,290, Victoria Beckham at Selfridges; trousers, £260, Marina Rinaldi;
bracelet, black ring with diamond, and earrings all as before
KATE WINSLET
As for the most challenging aspect of stepping into the role of director? ‘The hardest part was leaving any concerns I had at the door so that the actors never ever felt that. It was up to me to set the tone every single day, even if I was knackered or worried about the budget.’
Of course, having worked with a number of acclaimed directors during her career (including the likes of James Cameron on Titanic, her former husband Sam Mendes on Revolutionary Road and Todd Haynes on the excellent HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce), she’s picked up plenty over the years about what does – and doesn’t – work on set. ‘As actors we talk about this all the time… when something’s going on at home, or there’s something that’s frustrating you and a director turns around and says, “You know what? Use it” – you just want to fucking punch them in the face!’
Winslet’s refreshingly no-nonsense candour has always been part of her charm, and it extends to her awareness of how her foray into directing may be perceived. ‘I think people assume it’s like a vanity thing – in fact our cinematographer did say to me [his] friends were like, “So what is it, her vanity project?” And that’s people in the industry! The shit we have to unlearn is staggering.
‘I definitely was aware of how me stepping into that role might be perceived,’ she continues. ‘When male actors go into directing people are like, “Oh, interesting,” whereas if it’s a woman they’re like, “OK, come on, show us what you think you can do.”’ Still, she refuses to internalise any of it. ‘I can’t be responsible for the attitudes of other people but, in order to change those attitudes, I can’t not do it. You can’t shy away. I want to be part of changing the culture around women directing.’
In the immediate future, though, there is Christmas to think about, which she’ll be spending at home in England, surrounded by family. Her Christmas MO, I’m told, is ‘lots of food, lots of silly games, people sitting around eating too much cake, and having too many glasses of wine around a fire’.
With a number of family birthdays throughout the festive period, ‘There’s always something to celebrate – it just kind of keeps going.’ And tonight she’s taking her children to see Radiohead play the O2, the prospect of which causes her face to visibly light up. ‘I’m so excited. I rarely get to do things that are just me and my children, all of us together, logistically.’
It occurs to me, then, that good timing reveals itself not just in the quotidian pleasures of everyday life – a Radiohead gig with your children, the rare instance where schedules align – but also in the arc of one’s career. The right script at the right time; the confidence, and skill, to take on a new challenge. Finally, it’s Kate Winslet’s time to direct.
‘Goodbye June’ is in cinemas 12 December and streams on Netflix from 24 December
Shirt, £375, Joseph; bow tie, £165, Turnbull & Asser; watch, £1,500, Longines; earrings as before
creative director: carolyn roberts; Shoot Producer: Anna Dewhurst; Hair: Dayaruci; Make-up: Lisa Eldridge; Hair Assistant: Rogerio Da Silva; Make-up Assistant: Nilofar Mussa; Tailor: Majula Laitinen; Photographer’s Assistants: Dale Cutts, Morgann Eve Russell, Hector Marshall; Digital: Bruno Conrad; Fashion Assistants: Elena Garcia, Gavi Weiss, Amber Backhouse, Mili Jones
Editor-in-chief: HATTIE BRETT; Deputy editor: HANNA WOODSIDE; Associate editor: Rebecca lowthorpe
BE GRATEFUL.
BE HUMBLE.
DO THE WORK
KATE WINSLET
Coat, £1,240, AMI Paris; top, £2,190, and shorts, £1,500, both Hermès; tights, £35, Wolford; earrings, Maya’s own
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PHOTOGRAPHS Magnus Lechner
STYLING JEANNA KRICHEL
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