Kate Winslet has opened up about her wildly raucous new series, The Regime, revealing some of her sex scenes had the crew in hysterics.
the role of Chancellor Elena Vernham, the leader of a fictional European country, with Hugh Grant, Andrea Riseborough, Martha Plimpton and Matthias Schoenaerts also in the cast.
The series premieres on March 3 on HBO and promises to show the 48-year-old as we’ve never seen her before, with an iconic accent and a hilarious outlook on the world.
Speaking at a press conference for the HBO series, via the , she spoke candidly about her portrayal, sharing that the crew had to be removed from the set for laughing so much, particularly during a sex scene.
‘We did have a couple of moments when things would happen that were so funny that people would have to be sent out,’ she recalled.
‘Two people had to be sent out for laughing. One of them was Alwin Kuchler, our cinematographer, who was a repeat offender. And one of our hair and makeup people [laughed and got sent out] – which was actually kind of a problem.’
Kate explained that Herbert sported tattoos that were applied with make-up, but the intimate footage led to the ink ‘transferring’.
‘He was getting sweatier and sweatier. They kept rubbing off on parts of my body, like I’ve got the newspaper printed on me,’ she said.
The trailer for the Regime was released last month, introducing fans to the paranoid and fearful Elena as her leadership begins to crumble in front of her.
The official synopsis reads: ‘The Regime tells the story of one year within the walls of the palace of a modern European regime as it begins to unravel.’
A lot of work went into ensuring that the character sounded nothing like Kate, as she wanted the viewers to be drawn in immediately, but also not compare her to real-life figures.
However, she was fearful of coming off like a ‘gimmick’, continuing: ‘I was very hesitant to sound anything like myself.
‘For the main reason that there was a red flag in that, for me. Because the show was originally called The Palace. And we’ve had many shows – in quite recent decades – about re-creations of real historical events to do with the British monarchy.
‘I was worried the audience would spend the whole of the first – and, if not, part of the second – episode trying to come to understand exactly where they were. So, I knew for the penny to drop quickly, I had to come up with something else.’
‘But we had to be careful we didn’t … create a voice and do a gimmick,’ she added. ‘Because when you’re doing something that is sharply and cleverly funny like that, you have to play it for reality. And there are these much bigger themes – there is our geopolitical backdrop. And people will take from that whatever they do.’
The Regime premieres on HBO at 9pm ET, and will be available to stream on Max.
