Kate Winslet felt scrutinised and 'bullied' after 'Titanic'

Watch: Kate Winslet reveals she felt 'bullied' by the press after 'Titanic' success

Kate Winslet has said she was scrutinised and criticised after starring in Titanic and admitted she “felt quite bullied”.

The actor hit the big time playing Rose opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1997 blockbuster, but has admitted there was a downside to her overnight fame.

Opening up about that time in her life on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, she said all the attention from the British press made her realise she was not ready to be famous.

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Winslet – who was 21 when she starred in the film - said it was “weird” to have British tabloid photographers suddenly taking her picture as she shopped for groceries and popped out to buy a newspaper.

“It was like night and day from one day to the next,” she said.

The star, now 45, went on: “I was subjected to quite a lot of personal physical scrutiny, and I was criticised quite a lot.

“The British press were actually quite unkind to me, and I felt quite bullied, if I’m honest.”

She added: “I remember just thinking, ‘Okay, well this is horrible and I hope it passes’.

“And it did definitely pass, but it also made me realise that if that was what being famous was, I was not ready to be famous, thank you, no, definitely not.”

The mother-of-three said that because she was so young at the time she was still learning how to act, so felt she wasn’t totally ready to do lots of big Hollywood jobs as she didn’t want to make mistakes.

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As a result, after Titanic she started picking smaller projects so she could hone her acting skills and “also understand myself a bit better and also maintain some degree of privacy and dignity”.

Winslet is also known for films including The Reader, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and the Divergent series.

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