Kate Winslet's Son Joe Anders Is All Grown Up in Rare Red Carpet Appearance

“He started writing this when he was 19,” she explained to Jimmy Kimmel during a Nov. 19 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “He had always written all of his life. So it didn’t surprise me that he wanted to explore the idea of screenwriting.”

And after finishing the script, Joe asked Kate—who is also mom to Mia Threapleton, 25, with ex-husband Jim Threapleton and Bear Winslet, 11, with husband Edward Abel Smith—if she would read it.

“‘And if it's crap, just lie,’” Kate recalled Joe saying. “And he was just so sweet about it. And I read it and it was funny and touching and real and chaotic and messy in that way that family are. And I said to him, ‘I really think this could be a film.’”

The Titanic actress also detailed his inspiration for the film—which chronicles the death of a family's matriarch—which came after a teacher encouraged him to “write what you know.”

“The most seismic thing that had happened in his life was the loss of his grandmother when he was a teenager, my mother,” she explained. “So, he took that as his emotional backdrop.”

But while Kate only planned to star and produce the film, when it came time to find a director, she found herself wanting more. 

“I suddenly couldn't let it go,” she said. “And I said to him, ‘Look, I would love to direct it.’ Because when you give it to a director, it becomes theirs, which is exactly the right thing that should happen. But I didn't want that for him. I wanted him to remain a part of it.”

As she put it, “I wanted him to experience seeing this beautiful thing that he had created come to life.”

For more on celebrities’ relationships with their kids, read on.