The actor Kate Winslet was terrified of: “I’m going to die”
Hollywood certainly has its hierarchy firmly screwed into place, and for actors just entering the industry, imposter syndrome seems to be a guaranteed dish on the menu. In a world of Oscar winners and celebrated thespians, it’s not hard to see why a newcomer might question how they even got into the same business. But sometimes, you just have to remember that hierarchy really means very little.
This is something that Kate Winslet came to learn as her career picked up speed in the 1990s, which saw her graduate from British TV to Hollywood success in a matter of years, essentially throwing her straight into the deep end. Imagine, one minute you’re appearing in episodes of Get Back and Casualty, and the next you’re making your film debut in the Oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures. Winslet surely wasn’t prepared for this sudden success, which all happened while she was just a teenager.
Offers kept rolling in, however, and soon Winslet was cast alongside some huge names in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, including someone she was absolutely terrified of – Alan Rickman. The young actor wasn’t used to working with stars she had grown up watching, but now she had no choice but to put those fears aside.
Rickman was terrific at playing evil characters, even though his reputation off screen couldn’t have been more different. Maybe Winslet forgot that actors aren’t always like the characters they play – in fact, it’s often the case that the most kind hearted actors play the best villains. Still, with his first film role being the terrifying Hans Gruber in Die Hard, you can only imagine the kind of anxiety Winslet had when she was suddenly acting alongside him in her second-ever film role.
At the premiere of 2014’s A Little Chaos, a film in which Rickman directed Winslet, the actor revealed (via The Standard), “When I first met Alan I was absolutely terrified. I was 19, he was Alan Rickman, and he’s got that voice, and I remember meeting him in the hair and makeup trailer and thinking, ‘I’m going to die. He thinks I’m rubbish. Why am I here?’”
Yet, Winslet soon got over that feeling of imposter syndrome – she’d been cast for a reason, after all – and she quickly realised that Rickman wasn’t half as scary as he looked (or sounded). Sure, he went on to play Severus Snape – and pissed off a whole generation of audiences with a Joni Mitchell CD – but Winslet discovered that Rickman was never someone to be feared.
She admits that she “can’t believe, really, I managed to ever get over my fear of” Rickman, with whom she became a close friend. “And here I am 20 years later having ended up marrying him in Sense and Sensibility and now being directed by him in A Little Chaos,” Winslet added.
Evidently, Rickman was so good at his job that he managed to convince many people, like the young Winslet, that they should be scared of him, with his deep and instantly recognisable voice that practically seemed made for characters with a cunning sensibility. It appears that some actors forget that their colleagues are just that – simply good actors.
