Kate Winslet says her family never watches The Holiday

For many families, it has become an annual Christmas tradition: getting together to watch The Holiday.

The 2006 romantic comedy tells the story of two heartbroken women, played by Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, organizing a transatlantic house exchange to help them get through Christmas. Jude Law and Jack Black were the lovers.

But one family that doesn’t want to see the movie every year at Christmas is Winslet’s.

“No, we haven’t seen The Holiday in years,” she says flatly, adding, “We don’t sit down and watch the movies I’m in. I barely do.”

“You know, almost everything I’ve seen, I’ve only seen it once,” Winslet continues.

“When you look at the finished product, for most actors, it’s an excruciating experience. It’s something you kind of have to go through.”

The subject comes up again as Kate Winslet speaks to the BBC about her first Christmas film in almost 20 years, Goodbye June.

Written by her son Joe Anders, it was inspired by the death of her grandmother Sally, Winslet’s own mother, from ovarian cancer in 2017. It tells the story of siblings trying to put differences aside to unite and honor their mother as she undergoes hospice care at Christmas.

“It’s not really a movie about death,” Winslet says, explaining why she thinks the film will get a fitting festive watch on Christmas Eve, the day it releases on Netflix.

“It’s a film about life above all. People found it very, very uplifting.”

Not only does she star alongside Dame Helen Mirren, Timothy Spall, Andrea Riseborough and Stephen Merchant (a shout out to his famous role in Extras), but this is her directorial debut.

After a decade of contemplating getting behind the camera and people asking why she hadn’t, Winslet decided she finally had the space to do it.

“Now I feel like my kids are old enough that I can be a little more absent, just mentally absent,” says the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy winner.

“I just don’t think I honestly would have had the time before now, because I’ve been a mom since I was 25 and that’s obviously my priority on top of acting, and that was already a bit of a juggle.”

She insists she wouldn’t have done it if she wasn’t ready.

“There’s something about female directors, and certainly actresses who turn into directors, there’s a strange, almost judgmental thing. ‘Do we really know what we’re talking about? Do we really know what we’re doing with the camera?’

“But I’ve been in front of the cameras for 33 years, so somehow, by osmosis, [you] Learn the technical side of it. I really feel like at this point in my life I’ve learned everything.”

Last year, among the top 100 films at the UK box office, 16 were directed or co-directed by women, and 84 by men. Winslet has a theory as to why.

“A lot of us are mothers and it’s really, really hard. You can’t stop doing that to go to work, but in reality the job of being a director is incredibly intense and demanding, it’s just not possible.

“But I think there’s also a lack of confidence in women’s ability to achieve this. In fact, we’re incredibly forward-thinking, incredibly resilient, we can get by extremely well on very little sleep, and we get things done.”

Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart, and Zoë Kravitz all recently made their directorial debuts, while Dakota Johnson is another actress expected to do so soon.

Winslet has worked with some of the most talented directors in cinema history; James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Jane Campion, but she says her biggest influence was Australian Jocelyn Moorehouse, whose films include Proof, How to Make an American Quilt and The Dressmaker, in which Winslet starred.

“She was subjected to a lot of judgment and scrutiny. It was quite difficult for her to forge her own path, so I was very inspired by her determination.”

And Winslet hopes her choice to direct will inspire a new generation.

“I certainly felt that in making the decision to direct now, at this time in my life – I turned 50 this year – it felt meaningful to me to actively participate, hopefully, in changing this culture,” she says.

“If more of us do it, we hope that others will follow and that we will send the message that we are fully capable of doing this job as well as men.”

Two of Winslet’s three children followed her into the film industry, but are determined to make a name for themselves, literally, both making a conscious decision not to use her last name.

Her daughter Mia Threapleton, 25, with whom Winslet starred in the Bafta-winning TV series I Am Ruth, recently starred alongside Benico del Toro in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme.

Winslet’s son, Joe Anders, 21, not only wrote the screenplay for Goodbye June, but also appeared last year alongside his mother in Lee and had a small role in 1917, directed by his father Sam Mendes.

Kate Winslet finds it offensive that people suggest they are nepo babies.

“These children don’t have a head start,” she insists.

“Joe was like, ‘I don’t want people to think this movie is made just because you’re my mom.’

“The film would have been made with or without me. The script is so good. It’s the script that attracted all these wonderful actors,” she says.

“With Mia, I just try to tell my kids, ‘follow your heart.’

“There are many people in the world whose children work in a similar family business, whether it’s becoming a judge, lawyer or doctor. And it doesn’t surprise me at all that my children wanted to do something creative in their lives, having always expressed a great passion for writing, acting and music as well.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean being able to get a job and earn the respect of your peers and those around you. And both have charted their own paths separately.

“Part of it is teaching them to ignore the white noise of silly terms like nepo baby, which you really can’t do anything about.”

Goodbye June is in theaters starting Friday and on Netflix starting Christmas Eve. The Holidays are on BBC iPlayer.