Congrats to Kate Winslet for finally winning a Best Actress Oscar for her work in The Reader. The poor girl had been nominated five times previously, so it’s about time she got some recognition!
I fell in love with Kate the first time I saw her onscreen in Heavenly Creatures at Cinefest, the student-run cinema at Georgia State University. Admission was free with a student ID, and the snacks were cheap. So I spent far too much time in Cinefest watching movies when I should have been in Latin 201 or Foreign Policy. One afternoon, I decided to skip out and catch this Peter Jackson flick about two teenage girls in New Zealand that killed one of their mothers with a brick.
Kate was so pretty, so fresh, and so new in that film. After seeing her at Cinefest that day, I kind of think of her as “my” actress, in the same way I used to claim a band as my own in my teenage years. And just like the swell of pride you’d feel when that little garage band you liked when no one else had ever heard of them goes on to have a #1 single, it’s been so wonderful seeing her career blossom. And I feel like I’ve… “had her back” the whole time, ya know? We’re roughly the same age, so I absolutely consider her the best actress of my generation.
Congrats Kate – you rock, girl!
