Kate Winslet Is Turning 45! See How She’s Transformed Over The Years

Her first major role was in director Peter Jackson’s drama Heavenly Creatures (1994). In 1995 Winslet appeared in an adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility; the film was written by actress Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee.

Winslet’s turn as Marianne Dashwood, a young woman set financially and romantically adrift by the circumstances of her father’s death, brought her to the attention of a larger audience and earned her an Academy Award nomination for best-supporting actress. Winslet then starred in another literary adaptation, Jude (1996), which was based on Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure (1895). Winslet solidified her burgeoning reputation for taking period roles by portraying Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh’s production of Hamlet (1996).

In 1997 Winslet became an international star with the release of director James Cameron’s Titanic, an epic that innovatively blended a conventional romantic story line with the large-scale computer-generated special effects normally reserved for action movies.