Kate Winslet on winning 2 BAFTAS for ‘I Am Ruth’: ‘These moments do not get old for me’
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Kate Winslet and awards go hand in hand, don’t they? The Oscar winner recently took home her freshet golden gongs after winning not one but two BAFTAs at Sunday’s BAFTA TV Awards. She won Best Actress and Best Single Drama for her searing Channel 4 drama “I Am Ruth” to bring her BAFTA awards total up to four — she previously won three BAFTA Film Awards: “Sense and Sensibility” in 1996 (Supporting Actress); “The Reader” in 2009 (Leading Actress); “Steve Jobs” in 2016 (Supporting Actress). (Updated with “Sense and Sensibility” win)
“I Am Ruth” is part of Dominic Savage‘s “I Am…” series, which is a female-led drama anthology series that is entirely improvised. Previous incarnations include “I Am Hannah” with Gemma Chan, “I Am Danielle” with Letitia Wright, and “I Am Maria” with Lesley Manville. This one featured Winslet acting alongside her daughter Mia Threapleton and follows a mother (Winslet) of a teenage girl (Threapleton) who struggles with mental health issues related to social media and addiction to social media.
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Backstage at the BAFTA’s winners’ press conference room, Winslet, who is no stranger to these rooms, said that awards for projects about serious themes like “I Am Ruth” or “The Reader,” for which she won her Oscar, are more important.
“It is, because so much of our experiences, people we know’s experiences, members of our own families’ experiences, friends, friends of friends, our children’s, friends, parts of everyone were in this story and that makes it very, very precious, I have to say,” Winslet said.
“It does make this moment extremely unique and very different because we did manage to create something that has stayed with people, amongst people, and that’s a huge privilege as an actor, to be able to do something like that. The mental health crisis amongst teenagers because of the damaging effects of social media, it’s no secret and it’s global and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. The reason we wanted to make this film was because we wanted to create something that might make some people say hang on, that’s me, and that’s happened to us and we have to do something. And we can. And so it is enormously important and we feel very special, yes.”
Winslet was emotional in both acceptance speeches and that emotion carried through backstage. She has never been an actor who shies away from the joy and emotion of winning awards. On the contrary, she openly says how exciting and meaningful winning these prizes is, and that continued on Sunday night.
“These moments do not get old for me at all. I honestly did not think that we were going to win. I am genuinely shocked, really and truly properly shocked,” Winslet said.
“But so proud because we made something that really touched people and that people really thought about and talked about and are still talking about and still come up to me in the street and talk to me about and that is the most powerful thing about the job that we do and that sometimes we can really reach people. And that’s why we did ‘I am Ruth,’ that’s why we did this single drama. I feel incredibly grateful.”
Winslet called the show one of the hardest things she has done as an actress, not least because there was no script and the dialogue was all improvised. She cited one particular scene as an example of how tough the role was — when her character is sitting on the bed talking with her daughter and explaining that she doesn’t like herself as a mother anymore. She revealed that the words she spoke had “come out of very close friends’ mouths” as well as her own. It is this “commitment” and vulnerability that made the show such a “frightening,” monumental experience, particularly as it involved “bringing your own stuff into the room.”
“Everything about it was completely overwhelming. Everything about it was very hard. It was a very fragile and vulnerable experience for all of us but just an incredible time, really, because we just had to throw ourselves at it with a huge amount of trust and commitment. We were with Dominic and we knew he was going to look after us and was gently crafting something that was very truthful and very sincere. As actors, you don’t feel like you’re acting anymore because of the freedom and the space you have to create these words as you go along — the entire thing was improvised, not one single piece of scripted dialogue and that’s enormously challenging but very rewarding and that’s Dominic. He created the concept. It’s really his power and magic.”
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