Kate Winslet: walking the walk AND talking the talk

I've been a fan of Kate Winslet since she was a curvy nineteen-year-old in Sense and Sensibility sixteen years ago (pictured to the left). She was beautiful in that film but she also looked like someone we could all aspire to be, which is the kind of actress we need to see more of in Hollywood.

Around that time, Winslet's co-star (and Sense and Sensibility's Oscar-winning screenwriter) Emma Thompson told Winslet that if she ever became one of those anorexic-looking actresses found all over Hollywood, Thompson would stop speaking to her.

What Thompson said must have had an impact because Winslet has never become that kind of actress, the kind who looks malnourished.

Yes, she's more thin now—presumably she's lost her baby fat since S&S—than she was then, but she's also not too thin, and I have to give her credit for not caving to industry standards that require most actresses to look underweight.

Because of this, I shouldn't have been surprised when Winslet recently opened up in a completely honest and healthy way about her past weight issues in the April issue of Glamour magazine.

After the Glamour reporter asked Winslet about being called "blubber" as a young girl of eleven when she was 5'6" and 200 pounds, Winslet said, "Looking back on it, I really wasn't that heavy. I was just stockier than the other sporty, whippy-looking kids."

What that means is that Winslet is admitting that 200 pounds isn't really heavy for a five-foot-six woman, but rather, as she says, stocky. This is obviously something I've believed for years, so when I read about Winslet saying the same thing, I wanted to put my copy of Glamour up to my mouth and give it a big old kiss.

But it gets even better.

Because Winslet also admits a slight irritation with the backhanded compliments she used to get at that weight. "People would say to me," she explains, "''You've got such a beautiful face,' in the way of, like, "Oh, isn't it a shame that from the neck down you're questionable.'"

I know exactly what she is talking about. As I discussed in my "I don't care what anyone says—I think you're hot" post, people feel completely comfortable making these kinds of comments that on the surface sound like praise but in truth are laced with implicit criticism.

So when Winslet admitted this had also happened to her, I felt like I'd found my soulmate.

Finally, when asked about whether or not she considers plastic surgery, Winslet said, "I don't have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody's else's or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are."

All I have to say is, Kate Winslet, will you be my new BFF?