By Hilary Fox
LONDON (AP) --Kate Winslet is running things — on and off the set of her new TV show, "The Regime."
In the HBO show premiering Sunday, she plays Elena Vernham — also known as The Chancellor, the ruler of a fictional country in Europe, possibly near Poland. Winslet, who is also an executive producer on the show, says she's never been offered a character like this "in her life."
"I've never read a script like this before. I've never laughed so much at the material that was in front of me, as we did every single day, and I really just felt this was an exciting, challenging, terrifying opportunity for me to step totally out of my comfort zone," she says.
As the show's worshipped leader, she came face to face with many huge artworks of herself.
"Initially I thought to myself, oh God, that's so brilliant. I've got to have one. And then I got so sick of looking at them that towards the end I just wanted to burn them all," Winslet laughs.
Sometimes, the production team would neglect to warn her of a large, sequined image of her face on set.
"Funnily enough I don't like looking at me. It's not a comfortable place to be. So yes, there was a, there was a lot of being confronted with that, this heightened version of myself," she says. "I just had to kind of roll with it."
That's one of the many major differences between the star and the dictator — who loves to be loved by her people, addressing them regularly and also, occasionally, serenading them with a song ("Santa Baby").
Among her loyal subjects: Guillaume Gallienne, as her husband Nicholas; Andrea Riseborough, who runs the palace, and Danny Webb as one of her many ministers, subservient to her bizarre pronouncements. Martha Plimpton plays a U.S. senator and Hugh Grant is Elena's political rival.
Things in the country are running smoothly — well, as smoothly as they can while Elena deals with her latest hypochondria, paranoia and abandonment issues. Then she hires a soldier, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, in her fight against tiny deadly spores — and begins a relationship with repercussions that shake the regime, and the country, to its core, moving her battles to a much larger scale.
The dark comedy, from "Succession" writer Will Tracy, is billed as a twisted love story about two people who should never have fallen in love, which is "exactly why everybody should watch it," says Schoenaerts.
"The world is full of people that should have never met," he says.
Luckily, off screen, the results were less damaging with lots of laughter on set, Schoenaerts recalls: "It gives us some relief because, obviously, sometimes we really have to go (to dark) places."
And it was much less of a dictatorship than on screen.
"She leads by example," Schoenaerts says of Winslet. "She's always on time, always prepared, always kind, generous, open and extremely sharp. And she's a lot of fun to work with."
"The Regime" directors Stephen Frears and Jessica Hobbs both agree that a Winslet set is more like a welcoming theater company.
"It did feel like that," says Winslet, who has appeared in amateur theatrical productions.
Gallienne remembers that Winslet would take time out to talk to any new cast members so that they felt comfortable and part of the team.
"She's very direct, very honest, but very simple and very kind," he says. "As she says, you know, learn your lines, focus and deliver."
Winslet says that she takes being number one on the call sheet very seriously and tries to lead by example, to "lift the energy every day and just deliver it and show up and, and really be there for everybody."
"As I'm getting older I feel responsibility and gratitude, you know, both simultaneously," Winslet explains. "It's a really privileged position to be in. And I really respect it."
The self-centered chancellor is a far cry from any real-life figure, if you were wondering, with Winslet describing her character's theatrics as "so enormous and delicious."
"And her hysteria at times, and how volatile she is, how vulnerable she is. I mean, I just couldn't compare her to anyone," she says.
"I couldn't say there were things that I actually liked about her," adds Winslet, "but there were things that really just made me laugh."
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More