Kate Winslet on I Am Ruth and how film explores teenage phone addiction: ‘Social media has always worried me’

Published

2 years ago

December 9, 2022

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In Kate Winslet’s new film, she stars as the mother of a teenage girl – played by her own daughter Mia Threapleton – who is struggling with issues related to what seems to be an addiction to her mobile phone.

I Am Ruth is part of Channel 4‘s I Am series – a female-led drama anthology of standalone programmes, developed and written by director Dominic Savage in collaboration with the leading actress in each film.

The subject matter of Winslet‘s is particularly prescient right now, with the controversial Online Safety Bill making headlines as it goes through parliament. It is aimed at protecting youngsters in the wake of the deaths of teenagers including Molly Russell, who died after viewing suicide and self-harm content in 2017.

Like all parents, the Oscar-winning star worries about her own children’s relationship with technology.

“We all do – my youngest is about to turn nine and I do worry,” she told Sky News. “But it’s very, very hard, isn’t it, as a parent? Saying ‘No, you can’t have that, hey, stop looking at that, don’t look at it’ – because we’re doing it.

“Social media has always worried me – I think that there are extraordinary benefits to it for some people, but you have to be quite robust, I think, to know how to use it wisely and carefully.”

Winslet believes the pandemic exacerbated issues that already existed for children.

“Young people, I think especially because of COVID, it just got really out of control – loneliness and insecurity and just building a basic level of self-esteem for so many of these children. During COVID that self-esteem they were sort of searching for almost online in some way, and that’s desperately sad.

“And I think that everyone in some way can resonate with that story, and that idea resonates with most parents today who have teenagers – it’s incredibly hard.”

‘None of us as parents have a manual’

I Am Ruth sees Winslet’s character, Ruth, clearly unprepared for how to deal with her daughter as she withdraws, refusing to speak to her mother or arguing with her on the rare occasions she does leave her bedroom.

The actress hopes viewers might recognise aspects of the characters or what they’re going through. “It’s important to me to create space for people to talk about things that are really uncomfortable,” she said.

“Sometimes I am aware that being a little bit in the public eye and being someone who does have a little bit of a history with hopefully inspiring women and making women feel celebrated and seen and part of a wider conversation, I was aware that in doing something like this, we had to really get it right because hopefully people will watch and will listen and will feel that they can start to open up and have those conversations.

“So I definitely felt the responsibility. It was never a burden, but I just felt that we’ve really got to get this right. Like how the character looks, for example, we could not dress her up at all, we had to go very much the opposite.

“And also setting this in a middle-class world was really important to me – I said to Dominic [Savage], we can only do this if we don’t set it in a lower socioeconomic environment because I feel that often when stories like that are told on television or on film, that typically they are set in a more lower-class environment and I don’t think that’s right, and I don’t think that’s accurate in terms of now.

“I think it is the middle classes who are struggling and coming across these issues and I think it’s taking their breath away and none of us as parents have a manual. Sometimes we do look our children in the eye and just think, ‘oh, my God, I don’t know what to do’.”

‘We know how to push each other’s buttons’

The film was built around improvisation; the actors discussed scenes before filming but there was no exacting script. With Winslet and her daughter acting together, she says there were times when the fictional story tipped over into reality.

“There was always going to be an inevitable area of crossover just because we’ve all gone through something with our children. And obviously, when you put Mia and I together, we know how to push each other’s buttons and are not afraid to raise our voice to one another, even though it’s a really uncomfortable thing to do.”

The lines between reality and drama were also blurred in other parts of the production, giving the film a unique authenticity.

“There’s a scene in I Am Ruth when we sit down with a doctor who was actually a real doctor, who was really called Doctor Susie, and that was really her surgery. And the first time Mia and I met her was when the cameras were rolling and we walked into that room, so it was a really real visceral experience for both of us.

“But when she says, I’m going to get a referral to CAMHS [children and adolescent mental health services], my character says ‘I don’t know what that is’ – because some people don’t know.

“I think giving that little bit of education, throwing things into the conversation and hopefully making people feel as though they aren’t alone – this is a story that resonates, [parents] are sick of their children being obsessed and addicted to their phones, and at the same time, not knowing how to handle it.”

In developing this story and producing her hit drama Mare of Easttown, Winslet seems to be prioritising her career away from the camera as much as her acting.

“As a woman in her 40s, often women think this is the time when we kind of start to fade and decline a little bit – NO, you become more woman, more powerful, more important, your voice is stronger – get out there and use it…

“It’s a completely different ballgame because you’re constantly juggling everything, being aware of what’s going on, on set all the time and making sure everyone’s happy, as well as playing the character and raising the financing – it’s a lot, but the sense of achievement is enormous and always wanting to tell stories with a degree of integrity and certainly truth to me is absolutely paramount.”

I Am Ruth airs on Channel 4 later and will be available on catch up service All4

Entertainment

Warfare’s Alex Garland: ‘Being anti-war is not the same as saying it should never happen’

Published

4 hours ago

April 18, 2025

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Warfare's Alex Garland: 'Being anti-war is not the same as saying it should never happen'

Alex Garland says while it’s “the most obvious statement about life on this planet” that the world would be a better place without war, it “doesn’t mean it should never happen”, and there are “circumstances in which war is required”.

The Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director told Sky News: “I don’t think it is possible to make a statement about what war is really like without it being implicitly anti-war, inasmuch as it would be better if this thing did not happen.

“But that’s not the same as saying it should never happen. There are circumstances in which war is required.”

His latest film, Warfare, embeds the audience within a platoon of American Navy SEALs on an Iraqi surveillance mission gone wrong, telling the story solely through the memories of war veterans from a real 2006 mission in Ramadi, Iraq.

Garland says the film is “anti-war in as much as it is better if war does not happen,” adding, “and that is about the most obvious statement about life on this planet that one could make.”

Comparing it to ongoing geopolitical conflict across the world, Garland goes on: “It would be better if Gaza had not been flattened. It would be better if Ukraine was not invaded. It would it better if all people’s problems could be solved via dialogue and not threat or violence…

“To be anti-war to me is a rational position, and most veterans I’ve met are anti-war.”

The screenwriter behind hits including Ex Machina, 28 Days Later and The Beach says this film is “an attempt to recreate something as faithfully and accurately as we could”.

‘War veterans feel invisible and forgotten’

Almost entirely based on first-person accounts, the 15-rated film opens with soldiers singing along to the video of Swedish dance hit Call On Me – complete with gyrating women in thong leotards.

It’s the only music in the film. The remaining score is made up of explosions, sniper fire and screams of pain.

Garland co-wrote and co-directed the film alongside Hollywood stuntman and gunfight coordinator Ray Mendoza, whom Garland met on his last film, Civil War.

Mendoza, a communications officer on the fateful mission portrayed in the film, says despite the traumatic content, the experience of making the film was “therapeutic”.

Mendoza told Sky News: “It actually mended a lot of relationships… There were some guys I hadn’t spoken to in a very long time. And this allowed us to bury the hatchet, so to speak, on some issues from that day.”

Turning to Hollywood after serving in the Navy for 16 years, Mendoza says past war film he’d seen – even the good ones – were “a little off” because they “don’t get the culture right”.

Mendoza admits: “You feel like no one cares because they didn’t get it right. You feel invisible. You feel forgotten.”

With screenings of Warfare shown to around 1,000 veterans ahead of general release, Mendoza says: “They finally feel heard. They finally feel like somebody got it right.”

As to whether it could be triggering for some veterans, Mendoza says decisively not: “It’s not triggering. I would say it’s the opposite, for a veteran at least.”

‘I’m an actor – I love my hair’

A tense and raw 90-minute story told in real time, the film’s ensemble cast is made up of young buzzy actors, dubbed “all of the internet’s boyfriends” when the casting was first announced.

Mirroring the Navy SEALs they were portraying, the cast initially bonded through a three-week bootcamp ahead of filming, before living together for the 25-day shoot.

Black Mirror’s Will Poulter, who plays Eric, the officer in charge of the operation, says the film’s extended takes and 360-degree sets demanded a special kind of focus.

Poulter said: “It required everyone to practise something that is fundamental to Navy SEAL mentality – you’re a teammate before you’re an individual.

“When a camera’s roaming around like that and could capture anyone at kind of any moment, it requires that everyone to be ‘on’ at all times and for the sake of each other.

“It becomes less about making sure that you’re performing when the camera lands on you, but as much about this idea that you are performing for the sake of the actor opposite you when the camera’s on them.”

Another of the film’s stars, Reservation Dogs’ D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, plays Mendoza and is the heart of the film.

Woon-A-Tai says the cast drew on tactics used by real soldiers to help with the intense filming schedule: “Laughter is medicine… A lot of times these are long takes, long hours, back-to-back days, so uplifting our spirit was definitely a big part of it.”

He also joked that shaving each other’s heads in a bonding ritual the night before the first day of filming was a daunting task.

“As actors, we love our hair. I mean, I speak personally, I love my hair. You know, I had really long hair. So yeah, it definitely takes a lot of trust. And you know, it wasn’t even at all, but you know it was still fun to do.”

Warfare is in cinemas now.

Entertainment

UB40 say striking Birmingham bin workers ‘shouldn’t give up’

Published

7 hours ago

April 18, 2025

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UB40 say striking Birmingham bin workers 'shouldn't give up'

Birmingham band UB40 say the city’s striking bin workers and their union should “keep fighting” in their dispute over pay.

It comes as the government and the council urged them to accept a “fair and reasonable offer”.

“We’re fully on their side,” drummer Jimmy Brown told Sky News. “I think they shouldn’t give up, they should still be fighting.

“Working people shouldn’t have to take a reduction in their incomes, which is what we’re talking about here.

“We’re talking about people being paid less and it seems to me with prices going up, heating, buying food, inflation and rents going up then people need a decent wage to have a half decent life… keep going boys!”

Workers joined picket lines again on Thursday, with some fearing they could be up to £600 a month worse off if they accept the terms.

“We have total utter support for the bin men and all trade unions,” said guitarist Robin Campbell.

“The other side is always going to say they’ve made a reasonable offer – the point is they’re the ones who’ve messed up, they’re the ones who’ve gone bankrupt, they’re the ones now trying to reduce the bin men’s wages.”

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Lead singer Matt Doyle told Sky News: “It’s a shame that what we’re seeing is all the images of rats and rubbish building up, that is going to happen inevitably, but we’ve just got to keep fighting through that.”

About 22,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the city’s streets after a major incident was declared last month by Birmingham City Council.

On a visit to the city, local government minister Jim McMahon said the union and local authority should continue to meet in “good faith” and the government felt there was a deal that could be “marshalled around”.

He paid tribute to the “hundreds of workers” who have worked “around the clock” to clear the rubbish.

“As we stand here today, 85% of that accumulated waste has been cleared and the council have a plan in place now to make sure it doesn’t accumulate going forward,” said Mr McMahon.

Sky News understands talks are not set to resume until next week.

Entertainment

Drummer Zak Starkey speaks out after leaving The Who

Published

18 hours ago

April 17, 2025

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Drummer Zak Starkey speaks out after leaving The Who

Drummer Zak Starkey has said he is “surprised and saddened” after parting ways with The Who following recent charity shows at the Royal Albert Hall.

The musician, who is the son of The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr and his first wife, Maureen Starkey, had been with the band since 1996, when he joined for their Quadrophenia tour.

He was introduced to drumming as a child by “Uncle Keith” – The Who drummer and family friend Keith Moon, who died in 1978.

Earlier this week, the band issued a statement saying a “collective decision” had been made about his departure. It came after their Teenage Cancer Trust shows in March.

A review of one gig, published in the Metro, suggested frontman Roger Daltrey – who launched the annual gig series for the charity in 2000 – was “frustrated” with the drumming during some tracks.

Now, Starkey has issued a statement to Rolling Stone, saying he is “very proud” of his near 30 years with The Who.

“Filling the shoes of my Godfather, ‘Uncle Keith’ has been the biggest honour and I remain their biggest fan,” he said. “They’ve been like family to me.”

In January, Starkey suffered a blood clot in his right leg and a performance with his other band Mantra Of The Cosmos – which also features Shaun Ryder and Bez from Happy Mondays, and Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis – was cancelled.

Referencing this in his statement to Rolling Stone, Starkey said: “I suffered a serious medical emergency with blood clots in my right bass drum calf. This is now completely healed and does not affect my drumming or running.”

He continued: “After playing those songs with the band for so many decades, I’m surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night, but what can you do?”

Starkey said he planned to “take some much needed time off with my family” and focus on the release of Mantra Of The Cosmos single Domino Bones, which features Noel Gallagher, as well as his autobiography.

“Twenty-nine years at any job is a good old run, and I wish them the best,” he added.

Starkey has also previously played with Oasis, Lightning Seeds and Johnny Marr.

While Daltrey starts a solo tour at the weekend, The Who have two shows planned for Italy in July but no full tour. Details of a replacement for Starkey have not been announced.