Kate Winslet talks about the bravery needed to play a despot for HBO’s The Regime

Kate Winslet is ready to conquer HBO’s Sunday night lineup again, but her latest TV show is a far cry from 2021's Mare Of Easttown. Gone is the broody Philadelphia detective Mare Sheehan. Winslet is all set to play a wicked, sultry chancellor in The Regime, which premieres in March.

Created by Will Tracy, the satirical six-episode limited series centers on Elena Vernham, a physician-turned-aristocrat of a fictional Central European country. She’s a lot of things—temperamental, paranoid, bizarre, and controlling. All these qualities unsurprisingly mean she’s not great at her political job, to put it lightly, even when her empire is under siege. It worsens when Corporal Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts) enters her life. Hired to protect her, the two develop a sincerely toxic bond in a very short time, which only enhances Elena’s peculiar personality.

At a recent press conference attended by The A.V. Club, Winslet spoke about the challenges of playing such an absurdist character, especially because it goes against type. “That was the angst-ridden part of the process,” she said. “It was important we leaned into that side because, luckily, we were sent the entirety of the script. It helped establish the tone right away. I had to be really fucking brave [about it].”

Winslet and Tracy discussed toeing the line between satire and real-life considering the number of TV shows about the actual British monarchy. In fact, The Regime director Jessica Hobbs also worked on Netflix’s The Crown, winning an Emmy for her season four episode. “The show was called The Palace first. I was worried the audience might worry about it if I used my real accent, so I had to come up with something different.” the actor said. She has an uncanny fake diction in The Regime, which she says she crafted on purpose. The other things that differentiate her include, well, talking to the corpse of her dead dad, having a medical degree, how she puts herself physically in certain ways, and “by dressing in overtly sexual ways,” Winslet cheekily adds.

Still, Tracy and Winslet wanted to ensure the audience to root for Elena. So what if she’s a wealthy aristocrat stuck in her bubble and ruining the population she rules over? The actor spoke about the difficulty of wanting her character to be multidimensional to achieve this. “I’ll be honest, it was an extraordinarily complicated process. I was scared to fuck it up. I had lived in my head with her for quite a while before opening my mouth in front of anyone. So the anxiety around the choices I was hoping to be able to make, whether or not people would agree with them, was huge. I had moments of thinking to myself, ‘Okay, I’m going to have to believe this is okay.’ We wanted to give her anchor points and things that felt intrinsically feminine and vulnerable. I wanted to be brave about making those choices and shoving them in.”

Another aspect that gives The Regime an affecting turn comes from Elena’s love triangle with Corporal Zubak and her husband of 15 years, Nicholas (Guillaume Gallienne). It gets rough, especially as Elena allows Zubak deeper and deeper into her mind. Winslet says it’s her character’s way of keeping up a mask. “She fixates on Zubak despite her love for Nick because he has an ability to call her out on her shit. It’s completely heartbreaking.”

Well, distressing or not—but probably yes—The Regime is about to blow into HBO’s world next month. The show’s cast includes Andrea Riseborough, David Bamber, Danny Webb, and Henry Goodman, with appearances from Martha Plimpton and Hugh Grant. Will it be as much of a social phenomenon as Mare Of Easttown? Will it generate the same amount of discourse? If nothing, Winslet’s depiction of Elena is certainly worth it.

The Regime premieres on HBO on March 3 at 9 p.m. ET.