Kate Winslet’s 20-Year-Old Daughter Mia Slips ‘Under the Radar’ as an Actress With Different Last Name

Kate Winslet is mom to three kids, Mia Honey Threapleton, 20, Joe Mendes, 17, and Bear Blaze Winslet, 7, the oldest of whom has officially followed in her famous mom’s footsteps with a foray into acting. Winslet shared an update on her daughter during a recent interview with Lorraine Kelly on Lorraine, sharing that Threapleton is “20 and acting.”

“She’s away just now in the Czech Republic about to start work on a TV series over there,” Winslet said of her daughter. She added that Threapleton following in her footsteps has “been a wonderful thing.” “I think I knew it was coming, I always suspected,” the Oscar winner recalled. “And then a few years ago she turned around and said, ‘I think I would like to give it a go.’”

Threapleton most recently starred in the 2020 film Shadows, and Winslet explained that the fact that her daughter has a different last name from her has been beneficial for Threapleton. “What’s been really great for her is that she has a different surname,” she said. “So that initial job out of the gate, she slipped right under the radar and the people who cast her had absolutely no idea she was my daughter. And, of course, that was my biggest fear and most important for her self-esteem, of course.”

Winslet shares Threapleton with ex-husband Jim Threapleton, a film director who she was married to from 1998-2001. She shares Joe with ex-husband Sam Mendes and Bear with current husband Edward Abel Smith. Threapleton told Variety last year that Shadows was the first role she ever auditioned for and the first script she had ever been given to read.

“I had just finished school, was free of exam hell and felt excited, nervous and ready to start auditioning for things and hoping that the opportunities to audition would come my way,” she said. “I just hoped I would get the chance to do what I had wanted to do for so long!”

The 20-year-old added that despite having a mom who was often working on films, she never spent much time on set with Winslet. “I never actually spent much time around sets that my mum was working on,” she said. “It was always a special treat. It’s a very different experience when it is happening to you, and not just something I was getting to observe from time to time. I really understand why my mum has always impressed on us how hard the work is. She is right! And I loved every second of it.”