In a recent chat with The Sunday Times, the 24-year-old actress opened up about the moment she first told her Oscar-winning mum she wanted to act — and apparently, it was quite the surprise. “She was caught off-guard, going, ‘Oh, really? OK,’” Mia recalled, clearly amused by the memory.
Though she’d been into performing arts since she was about ten, Mia didn’t go for her first audition until she was 15. That’s when she decided to give it a proper go and see what opportunities were out there. It wasn’t a casual hobby — she was serious, but also very much determined to do things her way.
Addressing the inevitable whispers about nepotism, which pretty much come with the territory when your mum’s a Hollywood A-lister, Mia didn’t shy away from the topic. “I wanted to do that on my own,” she said. “I don’t know how to answer that, to be honest. I mean, you can’t [choose your parents]. You can’t.” Honest and pretty grounded, by the sounds of it.
Mia, who starred in Shadows, shared that her mum’s always been supportive, but made it very clear that success in acting doesn’t come without serious graft. One particular piece of advice from Kate stuck with her: “Read the damn script as many times as you can.” Classic mum — direct, no-nonsense, but rooting for her daughter to make her mark.
She added that Kate was all about Mia having her own experiences and not relying on her name to open doors. “She was very, very encouraging of me doing it on my own and for myself,” Mia said. “But she always — I mean, always — emphasized the hard work that goes into it.”
Kate Winslet shares Mia with her former husband, director Jim Threapleton. The couple split back in 2001, and since then, Winslet has continued to raise her daughter largely out of the public eye, so it’s no surprise this acting revelation felt a bit sudden.
Turns out Mia’s carving her path, and while her surname might raise eyebrows, she’s clearly putting in the work to make sure it’s her talent, not her family tree, that people talk about.