Career Peak – The point in an actor, actress or director’s career when they have given their best performance, reaching a point they will probably never match again!

The idea is to examine a person’s film or television career and decide when their career peak was; the moment that they gave their best performance or produced their best work. This could be with their first movie; it could also be yet to come.

Kate Winslet is an actress which seems to exist under the radar. When people have conversations about the best actresses, Kate Winslet is not always remembered or included although she has produced some excellent performances. Her career peak seems slightly obvious but is a strong performance in a career full of great performances.

Kate Winslet – Career Peak: Revolutionary Road

Although Kate Winslet had a successful career before 1997, that would be the year that contained one of the biggest movies of all time and a contender for her Career Peak, Titanic. Although the film was a huge success and catapulted both leads Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio into the limelight, Winslet didn’t seem to capitalize upon this.

Her movie choices after Titanic felt very low-key and in some cases very forgettable. None of the roles would define the actress like the James Cameron historic movie would. This meant that films like Hideous Kinky, Holy Smokes and Quills would be the best of what she produced before her next big mainstream movie.

It would be in 2004 when she gave her second potential Career Peak performance: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Alongside Jim Carrey, Winslet’s Clementine is a girl you want to fall in love with and you feel the heartbreak as the events of the movie play out. This also seemed to be another career resurgence for Winslet who would make movies alongside Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland and Jack Black in The Holiday.

2008 would be Kate Winslet’s year though. Two movies would single Winslet out as an acting powerhouse. In The Reader she played a complicated character, hiding a secret steeped in The Holocaust and giving a very raw performance.

Her Career Peak was in the same year. Back alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road was another difficult performance, full of intensity which felt very real and showed the actress could stand toe-to-toe with a DiCaprio who had become an acting legend. This would lead to a Golden Globe for the actress and a change in career as more dramatic performances seemed to follow.

Although She never reached the same heights and performance as Revolutionary Road, other impressive performances in movie such as TV drama Mildred Pierce, Carnage and Labor Day would follow. Strangely though, Winslet would also find herself involved in movies which would do very little to help her career.

Anyone linked to Movie 43 suffered but add to this the failing Young Adult franchise Divergent. Winslet is great as the villain, although the movie around her becomes more generic with every new installment.

Although not quite the powerhouse performances, Winslet is still one of the best aspects of each movie she graces. The Dressmaker showed she still has the looks and allure to hold a movie while Triple 9 managed to demonstrate how scary the actress could be, as a very different sort of villain to her Divergent role.

Overall, the future is still bright for Winslet but it will take a lot to reach the heights of the 2008 double-hitter. Revolutionary Road is the most impressive role which Winslet managed and although she continues to show potential, it may be difficult to get that sort of performance out of her again.