The two women have remained friends since costarring in the 1995 period drama
Wise words Emma Thompson once shared with Kate Winslet have stayed with her Sense & Sensibility costar through the years.
Winslet, now 48, was relatively new to show business when she acted alongside established star Thompson, now 65, who wrote the screenplay and costarred in the 1995 adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. The two played sisters, and developed a bond.
“She has a groundedness and a clarity of perception about the industry as a whole,” Winslet said during a conversation with moderator Josh Horowitz at the 92NY Center for Culture & Arts in New York City Sept. 23. “She was quite sort of protective of me.”
A few years later, when the 1998 film Titanic sent Winslet into the stratosphere of fame, Thompson was concerned, according to Winslet.
“I think she was actually just [a] bit worried like — you know, not, ‘is Kate gonna go off the rails?’ ’cause clearly that wasn’t in my personality — but just that it [can] be very overwhelming and what was I gonna do?”
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“She did say to me… just remember, it’s equally as important not to work as it’s to work. And I have never forgotten that,” continued Winslet.
“I knew that I didn’t want this to run out. I wanted to always be doing this job. And I thought, God, if I do it, then maybe people would get sick of me and argue, ‘Well, not her anymore, and let’s move on to somebody else,’” Winslet said of potential overexposure.
“I do remember me taking it very seriously, what Emma had said and acting on it. And still acting on it actually,” she continued.
Horowitz surprised Winslet — who was at the 92NY to screen her new film Lee, about trailblazing World War II photographer Lee Miller — with a taped video from Thompson and her husband Greg Wise, who also starred with them in Sense & Sensibility.
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“Your old friend Tommo here,” Thompson said in the message. “I wanted to remind you of the moment when you said to me, ‘I think you should talk to that guy’ and I said ‘No… He won’t be interested, he won’t be interested.’ And you said, ‘I think you’re wrong.’”
Wise, now 58, then appeared in the frame and quipped, “Thirty years ago, yeah, more than half of my life. Nearly half.”
Thompson then revealed that Wise is working with Winslet’s daughter, Mia Threapleton, 23, on an upcoming project, before closing out the video saying, “We love you!”
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Winslet previously praised Thompson in a 2020 essay. “The thing about Emma is that she’s a wonderful actress, but as a person, she is just extraordinary, and she’s absolutely herself, you know, there’s none of this film star glitzy stuff,” she wrote, recalling their time on Sense & Sensibility.
“She’s very much part of the team and somehow just that presence that she had did make everybody feel so relaxed and so comfortable. Em and I did become very much like sisters and, in fact, still now we really are.”
Lee is in theaters Friday, Sept. 27.
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