´óÏó´«Ã½

Kate Winslet says she wishes she had been given more support to help her cope with the pressures of early fame.

The Oscar-winning actress admitted her experience of Hollywood had been "one shock after another".

"It isn't easy going through that level of exposure so quickly," she told the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News website.

Winslet's latest film role sees her playing the villain Jeanine Matthews in dystopian sci-fi film Divergent.

The film, based on the best-selling novel by Veronica Roth, stars Shailene Woodley as the young heroine, Tris Prior.

Set in futuristic Chicago, the story imagines a society divided into five factions. Those who don't fit in - "divergents" - are seen as a threat to the system.

Winslet made her breakthrough film debut - aged 17 - in 1994's Heavenly Creatures.

After roles in Sense and Sensibility, Jude and Hamlet, she shot to global stardom in James Cameron's 1997 disaster epic Titanic.

Speaking to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ on Wednesday, Winslet said she would have been "really terrified" if she had known then what she knows now about the film industry.

"What I do wish is that I had had more support going through those early days. It's genuinely difficult," she said.

"I was living in my lovely little two-bedroom flat in north London... and suddenly I couldn't just walk down the street and buy a pint of milk."

She added: "With things changing overnight, I wish I had known people who could have said 'this is what's going to happen'. I wish I'd known more people who had actually gone through that.

"It's a shocker, that one. It's like having 55 babies naturally in quick succession."

Winslet, 38, who won an Oscar for her role in 2008's The Reader, said she thought 22-year-old Woodley would cope well with her fame.

"She's had much more experience of working as an actress than I had had when I became famous.

"She lives in California so her experience of the Hollywood machine is much more day-to-day present for her - for me it was just one shock after another.

"She's a very graceful, gracious humble person and she's very settled in herself probably more than I was when I was going through it. She's going to be just fine."

Divergent is out in the UK on Friday.