MARE OF EASTTOWN

FAB THRILLER ALERT! MON 19 APR, 9PM, SKY ATLANTIC / NOW

Hollywood royalty Kate Winslet stars as Mare, an American small-town detective who has more than her fair share of issues – both personal and professional – in this excellent new seven-part thriller.

For a seemingly mundane place, there’s a lot going on in Easttown, from troubled teen mums to missing girls, and Mare’s right at the centre of it, not to mention related to most of the locals. With plenty of intriguing storylines and a great cast of supporting characters (including Winslet’s

Mildred Pierce co-star Guy

Pearce and American Horror

Story’s Evan Peters), this new drama is a must-see.

You play local cop Mare Sheehan… Playing Mare was one of the biggest challenges I think I’ve ever been slapped with… She’s nothing like me – so that was pretty scary, in a great way, if you’re an actor like me who likes to feel terrified and exposed. I’d just never done anything like this, but I was excited to read something that gripped me straight away. It came at the perfect time for me – I was looking for something that was going to consume me, and it certainly did.

Would you be a good detective? I’d be lousy! I’d be very good at the coffee and the after-work beers, definitely – but I could never do the job that Mare does, I don’t think I have the mental stamina. The one thing I did feel I had in common with Mare is that real sense of family, and how much it means to her to hold that together at all costs.

Did you binge on any crime dramas while prepping? I actually deliberately didn’t, but I spent several months working with the Easttown Police Department as I wanted to learn the real nuts and bolts of being a detective – I didn’t want to just be quickly shown on the day. I got obsessed with putting handcuffs on correctly, and I also drove myself mad for months trying to learn the Delco (Pennsylvania) dialect…

You’ve always been great with accents.

This one drove me crazy – it was among the hardest I’ve ever done. I always hate it when you can hear someone doing a voice or an accent. It’s important for me to make it blend in. I wanted Mare to really feel as though she had been born and raised there, and so I just did the work and kept doing it. Finally, on the last day of the shoot, I was like, “Oh, I think I’ve nailed this now!”