Kate Winslet Says She’s a ‘Street Urchin Who Got Lucky’ 30 Years After Making Movie Debut in Heavenly Creatures (Exclusive)

Thirty years after making her movie debut as a teenager in 1994’s Heavenly Creatures, Kate Winslet is reflecting on what she calls her “unlikely” rise to fame.

“I was kind of a little street urchin who got lucky, really,” Winslet tells PEOPLE. “I'm a very unlikely success story, to be quite honest with you. I don't come from money. There isn't a great pedigree of performers behind me. I wasn't trained.”

Winslet was raised along with three sisters in a working-class household in southern England by Roger, a workaday actor who took odd jobs, and Sandra, a waitress and nanny.

She began acting at an early age, and found she had a knack for it. “I always loved acting. I still love it. I love it more and more all the time. It's an extraordinary thing that I get to do with my life and an extraordinary thing that I love,” she continues.

Over the past three decades — since acting opposite future Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures — Winslet has gone on to build an impressive résumé, including both blockbuster hits (1997’s Titanic) and acclaimed titles (2006’s Little Children). She won an Oscar (for 2008’s The Reader) and was nominated six other times. 

She also took home two Emmys, in 2011 and 2021, for Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown, respectively.

“The pride I feel is enormous in the things that I have been able to do,” says Winslet, who’s now starring in Lee, the true story of model-turned-World War II photographer Lee Miller. Winslet is also a producer on the film. 

“And to be able to say that I'm proud of myself matters, because I think that that's something else I hope to put out there — that women should be able to stand with pride and acknowledge that and not feel like they are bigging themselves up,” she adds.

“It's a self-acceptance and an awareness of doing something that is challenging and that feels impactful and takes effort like you wouldn't believe,” says Winslet.

“So, yeah, if you'd told the 18-year-old me that I would've had this career up till now and still getting to do the thing that I love, I probably wouldn't have believed you,” she says.

After Lee, Winslet turns her attention to The Spot, an upcoming Hulu series about a surgeon who may be responsible for a child’s death as a result of a hit-and-run.  Says Winslet, “I’m very busy, and excitingly so.”

Lee is in theaters now.