Kate Winslet Refused to Have a 'Bulgy Bit of Belly' Edited out of 'Mare of Easttown'

Kate Winslet is refusing to downplay her flaws.

The offer was there while filming her TV series "Mare of Easttown," but in an interview with The New York Times, the British actress said she declined on more than one occasion. 

Recalling one particular incident, Winslet said the director offered to remove a "bulgy bit of belly" in her sex scene with Guy Pearce, but she refused. She also sent back the promotional poster twice because it had been touched up. 

"They were like 'Kate, really, you can’t,' and I’m like 'Guys, I know how many lines I have by the side of my eye, please put them all back,'" she said. 

In the series, Winslet plays a small-town detective investigating a murder while navigating her own personal drama. The character is flawed and that is why the audiences can connect with her, Winslet said.

"Listen, I hope that in playing Mare as a middle-aged woman — I will be 46 in October — I guess that’s why people have connected with this character in the way that they have done because there are clearly no filters,” she said. “She’s a fully functioning, flawed woman with a body and a face that moves in a way that is synonymous with her age and her life and where she comes from. I think we’re starved of that a bit."

Winslet has dealt with her fair share of criticism from the media regarding her weight and appearance. She shot to fame in the 1990s, which was a time when waif-thin actresses dominated Hollywood. Winslet on the other hand was more curvaceous. There was pressure for her to conform to the industry's norm, and although she had moments of insecurity, Winslet rejected the notion. 

"This is going to sound really weird," she told Vanity Fair in 2008, "but I never had a desire to be famous. I never had huge ambitions—never.… I was fat. I didn’t know any fat famous actresses. I just did not see myself in that world at all, and I’m being very sincere."

"Because you always think that you just look a little bit wrong or a little bit different from everyone else," she added. "And I still sort of have that. I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city and I think, I should make more of an effort. I should look like that. But then I think, They can’t be happy in those heels."

Related Stories:

• Kate Winslet Saved Richard Branson's Mother from Necker Island Fire
• Bear Blaze, Newborn Son's Name, Was Deliberate, Says Kate