Taking charge
Kate Winslet welcomes Hollywood’s change of direction when it comes to women’s stories,
APOWERFUL dictator who butts heads with a whip-smart US politician while staring down a coup from insurgents. Not so long ago, that story would most likely feature two men at the centre of the drama on our screens. Not so with The Regime, which sees an impeccably coiffed and coutured Kate Winslet ruling over a fictional European principality with an iron fist and a simpering smile.
“When I read this script it just leapt off the page that, my God, it’s a woman,” Winslet says of playing The Regime’s central character, chancellor Elena Vernham.
“It’s a woman trying to run her small country. She doesn’t get it right all the time. In fact, often she gets it very, very wrong. She’s obviously deluded, and the show is absurd. It’s obviously a satire, and there’s a love story element that is twisted and dark and crazy – but most of all I did appreciate the fact this was a role that was written and created for a woman to play.”
Winslet’s co-star Martha Plimpton (playing the US secretary of state who is forced to go toe-to-toe with the unhinged Elena) marvels at how Winslet has galvanised her fame and power to lift other women up and produce unorthodox content like The Regime.
“Would that there were more women out there who had that ability and that access,” Plimpton adds. “I think [that] would be amazing. But I am encouraged, and this business is changing rapidly.”
Winslet says she also sees evidence the industry is moving with the times – and indeed, has to – because “We are, as an audience, leaning into stories about women. So, let’s keep making stories that other women want to hear. I think the tide has turned. We just have to keep it rushing on to the right kinds of shores.”
On the eve of International Women’s Day, Winslet is also keen to ditch clichéd labels that are so often used for film and TV shows centring on strong women.
“So, it’s not necessarily about a trailblazer or a pioneer of her time. You wouldn’t even use these words for men,” she points out.
“We need to enter this phase where we are making stories about women because they are really f---ing important. And we are really f---ing amazing.”
The Regime marks the third major series that Winslet has helmed. She was one of the first film stars to make the leap to TV with the five-part 2011 series Mildred Pierce, years before her contemporaries and fellow Academy Award-winners such as Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Julia Roberts followed suit.
“I do feel very proud that in 2010, when I filmed Mildred Pierce, I was one of the earlier screen actors to be doing what were considered smaller-screen pieces – it was the beginning of a whole new era,” the 48-year-old says with a smile.
Since then, the wave of streaming services has brought far more opportunities for actors, which Winslet points out to the new generation of performers by way of encouraging them to stick at it.
“When I was younger there were occasionally big films with some parts in them; there were occasionally small independent films if they got the financing in place; there were four television channels in [the UK]; and there were television commercials,” she says of the industry.
“But now, there’s just so much and I think for younger actors the roles are much more diverse, much more inclusive.”
Despite acting for 30 years, Winslet says she gets nervous before every performance. And the six-month shoot for The Regime was no exception.
“I’m always afraid. Most actors are,” she admits. “What was so lovely about this [series] is we had a huge cast of actors, and we were all scared together.”