Kate Winslet explains the regime and shoots down the return of Mare of Easttown

Kate Winslet is back on television and this time she’s playing a character she’s never really played before.

HBO’s opening scene. The regime set the scene. The geopolitical satire begins somewhere in the center of Europe. The music is ominous, then peculiar, as a soldier (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) is taken to the grand palace of the populist ruler of a fictional country, where he is told they are renovating to contain and remove toxins from the air. “Never breathe in his direction. Keep calm. “Don’t vomit,” he was instructed before meeting with Chancellor Elena Vernham. In this first meeting, Winslet as Elena is calm and direct.

Given the fate of the rest of the episode and the season, it’s safe to say that this first impression isn’t accurate. Elena draws attention when she is seen in state-controlled media and performing on stage during their people (despite the global accusations made against his regime). But in private, within the palace walls, she becomes increasingly paranoid and unstable, convinced that the mold in the air is poisoning her while she pretends to be the mother of the child of one of her employees (Andrea Riseborough). ). Those who work for her tiptoe around her unpredictability and take advantage of her selfish agenda.

But it is Herbert Zubak (Schoenaerts) who makes her feel safe after a security breach. He exposes the hidden motives of those around her, effectively becoming her most unlikely and closest confidant. The first episode ends with her brutal honesty elevating him to the status of her true right-hand man, as he snaps her out of her most vulnerable moment and inspires her to launch a new geopolitical missive. And viewers may rightly wonder, what happens next?

“Over the past year, these individuals (on my staff) have weakened our economy, our government, and even my immune system, aided by meddling foreign regimes. That is why today I am issuing an executive order to pay our debts, reject American investors and free this country from its unhealthy dependence on NATO,” Elena says in the televised closing speech of the premiere. “It’s time to show America and the world precisely what we’re worth.”

When speaking with Winslet shortly before the series’ release, the Oscar-winning actress said it was easy to return to Elena’s cadence and distinctive way of speaking; Mostly, she drops her lip when she’s vulnerable. “I can turn it on pretty quickly,” she says. The Hollywood Reporter. And she’s even brought Elena home with her. “I actually really like doing it, and sometimes my son says, ‘Oh, Mom.’ Please, not Elena. Yuck!’ Although, funnily enough, we started a series of bedtime books and the other day he asked me to do one of the characters like Elena: a slightly scary school teacher.”

Winslet says that when she first read creator Will Tracy’s script (Succession, The menu), had never encountered anything like it. She says the research, born of Tracy’s personal interest in devouring books about autocracies, authoritarian leaders and totalitarian states, that he and the writers had done to make the series sharp, funny, fast and smart was all on the page.

“I have never come across a character so unique, so unusual, so unimaginable and unpleasant,” he says. “And I just knew, I had to make this something more. This has to be something you’ve never done before; I really have to be scared. “I really have to challenge myself.”

He adds: “There was a lot of anxiety about how we were going to play this role.”

Winslet knew Elena couldn’t be a “shrill, loud person,” she says, “that’s not interesting to me. I had to feel like there’s a veneer or exterior to her that should make you feel really uncomfortable and shaky.”

I needed to break down the character and understand her backstory, one that was hinted at in the mausoleum conversation Elena has with her deceased father in the first episode.

“When you look at his emotional and mental state, and how fragile he is and the deteriorating state he’s in (he’s in this acute, heightened state of anxiety all the time), that can’t be something that just happened. to her. That’s clearly something she’s lived with for a long time, and she probably tried to hide it to varying degrees from her audience, from her adoring followers: my people” he says, slipping back into Elena for effect.

She continues: “He has tried to keep it controlled and hidden. But the sadness I feel for Elena probably began when she was a child. She was raised by this obviously tyrannical and not very kind father; She had an absent mother. It’s all very cleverly integrated into those mausoleum scenes, where you really get the sense that this is a person who had a pretty fucked up childhood and was exposed to trauma that stayed with her.”

Once Winslet realized that key part of the character, she knew she had to develop a new voice for Elena. “There was no way she could sound measured. My own voice and resonating sounds evolved as a person and became grounded. What I do know is that my own voice is healthy,” he says. “She had to sound very sick and shaky. And that had to come from an emotional place. It couldn’t be something fun or used for effect. It had to be based on reality.”

What is coming is a six-episode story with a beginning, middle and end; the kind of arc you might expect from a six-episode limited series starring someone of Winslet’s caliber, even if the ending raises questions about whether there might be more to it. The regime.

When asked if he sees the series as finite, he compares the question to one he still gets asked about another HBO limited series. Easttown Mare. (He also starred in the 2011 HBO miniseries. Mildred Piercewhich also earned him an Emmy).

“This is one of those questions that people used to ask all the time with Horse, and there would be a million articles derived from what I had said,” she says of the 2021 limited series that earned her an Emmy for best actress. “All I can say is that I loved playing Elena. I absolutely loved her. “I love doing television, I love working with HBO.”

He continues: “The great joy of television for an actor is that it is a real pleasure, because you get much more of a script. You get more story, you have more to play with. When you hold a movie script in your hand, it may be 100 to 125 pages thick, unless it’s written by Aaron Sorkin, where it’s usually around 250 pages (laughter). But an episode of The regime either Horse It was 60 pages long. “There are 360 ​​pages of pure pleasure.”

Winslet says her television work ends up being an immersive experience, which is what she was looking for when emerging from the isolation of the pandemic. “You have these long filming experiences where everyone has to get along,” he says of the cast and crew. “You have to find the right rhythm and work together, and listen to each other properly to include everyone’s voices. And you can’t judge. You have to adapt to what people bring to the room each day, and I love that experience. I love sharing space with actors, and with many of them. And this really offered that. Coming back from COVID meant a lot to me. I missed it. I needed it. “I craved that connection.”

For now, Winslet can offer a tangible update on the persistent status of a Horse second season, something that has been speculated about since it ended.

“At the moment, I honestly haven’t had an active conversation with anyone at HBO about a possible second season in quite some time,” he says. THR He confirmed that there are currently no plans for a second season, according to a source. But still, never say never?

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Winslet acknowledges. “But it definitely means I’m not lying. As if it had not arisen.”

For now, Winslet will wear Elena’s mask, as The regime continues to tell his story over the next few weeks. And she, unlike Winslet, is someone who cannot be taken at her word.

“You have to feel like you just don’t know what he’s going to do next,” he jokes.

The regime releases new episodes Sundays at 9 pm on HBO.