Without question one of our greatest working actresses, Kate Winslet has been working since she was a teenager, getting her start on television in the United Kingdom before making her big-screen debut in 1994. More than 30 years later, her accolades include one Oscar (and seven total nominations), two Emmys, five Golden Globes, four SAGs, and five BAFTAs, won for projects as wonderfully varied as 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, 1997’s Titanic, 2008’s The Reader and Revolutionary Road, 2015’s Steve Jobs, and 2022’s Mare of Easttown on HBO.

Now celebrating her 50th birthday, Winslet remains at the peak of her powers, soon to make her feature directorial debut with the drama Goodbye June, starring Winslet, Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Stephen Merchant, Helen Mirren, Andrea Riseborough, and Timothy Spall. Her 24-year-old daughter, Mia Threapleton, has also entered the spotlight, appearing with Winslet in the anthology series I Am… on Channel 4 and in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme.

Below, in honor of her birthday, we take a fond look back at the very beginnings of Winslet’s career, from her turns in Heavenly Creatures and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet to the whirlwind that was Titanic.