Here’s something that might remind you of the passing of time: Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet is celebrating her 50th birthday. The film star that so many of us grew up alongside (being that she starred in her first film, Heavenly Creatures, aged just 17) is marking her half-century today (5th October).
Getting older is often bound up in existential dread, regardless of age, but Winslet doesn’t seem to mind – at least, not in the way that women have relentlessly been made to believe that we should. Instead of running from her fine lines or a newfound penchant for wool socks (or is that just me?), she says things like: “I am proud of my wrinkles. They tell the story of my life, of who I am, and where I have been”. Or, “Women get more beautiful as they get older. Our faces become more of who we are, they sit better on our bone structure, they have more life, more history. Things I find incredibly beautiful are wrinkles around the eyes, the backs of hands.”
Hmm, you haven’t seen the backs of my hands, Kate, about which I once joked to a colleague, “They look like they belong to a 90-year-old” and she replied, “Oh, they actually do.” I was in my early-30s at the time.
This sort of insidious stuff is exactly why we need Winslet’s brand of ageing. She’s neither self-deprecating, nor in denial (see: Mariah Carey recently declaring, “I don’t know time. I don’t know numbers”). Instead, her approach is to be utterly unapologetic, with that dependable Head Girl energy that we’ve come to expect from her over the years.
None of the above should be radical. Why wouldn’t Winslet celebrate getting older, wiser and more beautiful? Except, from where I’m sitting, it does look pretty radical now, in a world where women are almost expected to get an entirely new face the second they hit 40. Of course, what you choose to do with your appearance is entirely down to you, but it certainly helps me quieten my own inner critic, at least for a few minutes, when a Hollywood actor like Winslet shrugs off the pressure around growing older as though it’s the least interesting thing about her. Which it is. She has an entire Wiki page dedicated to her numerous awards. She’s an actor at the top of her game.
