Kate Winslet Says Crew Worked for ‘Less Than Their Weekly Rate’ on ‘Goodbye June’

Kate Winslet is opening up about the challenges she faced as a female director. 

After making her feature-film directorial debut with the holiday drama Goodbye June, which was written by her son Joe Anders, 21, the actress revealed that she had to call in a few favors to navigate the tight budget that came from making the film as a woman. 

“There’s a different set of language that is used talking to actresses who become directors as opposed to male actors who become directors,” Winslet, 50, said during the Dec. 19 episode of the Kermode & Mayo’s Take podcast. “Sometimes, with a budget like Goodbye June, you might be asking people to come and work for less than their weekly rate.”

“I’m talking about department heads and their crew,” she continued. “Sometimes people take a little bit of a hit because they want to come and be part of that experience, and they want to support you, and we did have that on Goodbye June.”

The Titanic star went on to emphasize that, while she has no criticism of the “brilliant young actors” who have been directing recently, it seems as if they are “just allowed to get on with it.”

“Somehow there’s this societal assumption that they will automatically know what they’re doing, whereas the same assumption is not made of women,” Winslet noted. “That’s not right and actually it’s not fair because what it does mean is that it will be harder for us to get films made, harder for us to get the kind of budgets that we need to make those films.”

While showing one of her female colleagues a very early cut of the Netflix film, Winslet recalled being told that she could benefit from having “a little bit more confidence” with some of her choices.

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Claiming that the woman would have never said the same to a man, Winslet insisted that both men and women need to “unlearn” their preconceived notions. 

“I don’t really know how to continue to try and change or advocate for other women other than to actually just do it,” Winslet said. “That was also a part of the reason why I wanted to direct Goodbye June because, having advocated for women in film for the majority of my life, I did think to myself, ‘Who am I if I’m not actually doing it and actively trying to change the culture?’ ”

“Even if I never do it again, I feel so proud that I have done it now and done it at a time that I think the film industry is struggling,” she added.