{"id":80151,"date":"2024-03-04T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/04\/how-kate-winslet-turned-into-the-worlds-most-ridiculous-dictator-for-the-regime\/"},"modified":"2024-03-04T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T03:00:00","slug":"how-kate-winslet-turned-into-the-worlds-most-ridiculous-dictator-for-the-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/04\/how-kate-winslet-turned-into-the-worlds-most-ridiculous-dictator-for-the-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"How Kate Winslet Turned Into the World\u2019s Most Ridiculous Dictator for &#8216;The Regime&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap\">The brilliance of Kate Winslet\u2019s performance in <em>The Regime<\/em> is that, from beginning to end, something about it feels <em>off<\/em>. The voice, the look, the movement\u2014something\u2019s very amiss in the calibration. Winslet brilliantly embodies that internal discombobulation. \u201cThis is a woman in an imagined mental and physical state of decline,\u201d the Oscar winner tells me. \u201cWe allowed for those things to be manifestations of something more traumatic that had learned to live inside of her body\u2014but that she had had to learn how to hide. I was playing someone who\u2019s always wearing a mask of some kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">A silly mask, maybe, but a mask nonetheless. In <em>The Regime<\/em>, which premiered Sunday night on HBO, Winslet portrays Elena Vernham, the chancellor of a fictional country in crisis in Central Europe who falls for a disgraced military official (<strong>Matthias Schoenaerts<\/strong>) just as a movement brews to overthrow her rule. Created by <em>Succession<\/em>\u2019s <strong>Will Tracy,<\/strong> the series plays like a farcical drama, with Vernham as absurd as she is terrifying. \u201cAmongst a lot of these authoritarian figures, one commonality is that when they arrive on the scene, there\u2019s something about them that is seen as not what a leader is supposed to look like,\u201d he says. Winslet, also an executive producer on the project, clicked with that idea immediately as she and Tracy got to talking. For example: \u201cI knew right away that it wasn&#8217;t going to make sense for me to play her using my own voice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Such idiosyncrasies often end up being a dictator\u2019s \u201csuperpower,\u201d Tracy argues. \u201cThey weaponize their quirks.\u201d For the face of this tonally tricky six-part series, he knew he\u2019d need a powerful, forceful actor to immediately sell an audience on the bit\u2014the sense of, \u201cYes, I think that person could, with an iron grip, command the undying loyalty of millions.\u201d In other words, he needed a star. \u201cSomeone who has a kind of uncanny, world-historic level of magnetism and charisma\u2014which Kate has,\u201d he says. Tracy also needed someone who could be wildly, deceptively funny. Winslet proved up to that task, too, even if she hadn\u2019t had as many chances to show off that side of herself before. Not that you\u2019d know it.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"AssetEmbedAssetContainer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB responsive-asset AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"ResponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Fans of her satirical episode of HBO\u2019s <em>Extras<\/em> or her darkly funny work across indies like <em>Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind<\/em> know Winslet to be more than adept at comedy. It\u2019s just not something she\u2019s been asked to do very often. \u201cI had to accept early on that\u2026there was nothing in her that I had ever come across before,\u201d she says. \u201cI had never played anything like this.\u201d Winslet came into <em>The Regime<\/em> ready to play by the rules of comic acting beat by beat, even with the license to try anything and everything. Her accent work is hilariously singular, no surprise given her proven range\u2014but even there, she walked uncharted territory. \u201cI\u2019m always doing dialects of one kind or another, like <em>Mare of Easttown<\/em> or back to <em>Titanic<\/em>, and there\u2019s always a coach who\u2019s teaching me and making sure I\u2019m fucking <em>doing<\/em> the damn thing,\u201d she says. \u201cTo suddenly be doing something that actually was so varied in range, and also really, really in her body\u2014it was quite scary to be doing that by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">While Winslet\u2019s work, from the stiff physicality to the muffled lisp to the outrageous hysterics, all build toward successful belly laughs, she describes her character-building work in surprisingly familiar terms. \u201cComedy just isn\u2019t funny if you\u2019re trying to make it funny,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the circumstance\u2014it\u2019s the absurdity of what they\u2019re doing in that world and what they\u2019re saying.\u201d She began by thinking about Elena\u2019s childhood, consulting a neuroscientist and a psychologist to explore how a traumatic upbringing\u2014particularly, a father who instilled a palpable sense of shame\u2014could manifest in the way she moves through the world. Her peculiar vocal inflections are emphasized far more when she\u2019s in an intimate moment with her late father than when she\u2019s getting down to business with an American diplomat (<strong>Martha Plimpton<\/strong>). She fills dead air, too, by propping herself up. \u201cShe\u2019s constantly asking people [if] she looks nice, never waiting for a response and always just telling it to herself,\u201d Winslet says. \u201cThese weird, twisted affirmations that go on are all part of her sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Those scars are visualized in the costuming. \u200b\u200b\u201dNobody quite knows how she&#8217;s going to present herself at any given moment,\u201d says Oscar-nominated costume designer <strong>Consolata Boyle.<\/strong> \u201cAt just one moment, she can be dressed immaculately in a most beautifully-cut suit, and then we can travel with her where she\u2019s in a fashionable military uniform with gold-bullion trim.\u201d In the show\u2019s design, Elena communicates her state of mind through a dizzyingly rotating wardrobe\u2014one that\u2019s always fitting just a tad too strict. \u201cShe\u2019d dress in ways that are overtly sexual with just how tight those costumes were\u2014and that I was occasionally sewn into,\u201d Winslet says. \u201cShe uses her physical self in a way that is completely inappropriate at times, but she simply doesn\u2019t have the emotional language with which to communicate what she thinks, how she feels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">As Boyle, who was brought into the project by director <strong>Stephen Frears,<\/strong> describes the costuming evolution, \u201cElena can move from the absurd to the terrifying to the manipulative to the paranoid, all in almost one day. To create that reality was the challenge.\u201d Tracy sees such a religious dedication to dressing how she feels as reflecting Elena\u2019s tragic truth: \u201cIt\u2019s part of what\u2019s broken about that person. She suspects deep down, \u2018Maybe that\u2019s all I am.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">There was also the matter of maintaining a throughline of humor. One day, Boyle brought Winslet the idea of adding red lining to the cape that Elena wears when she announces a new, self-congratulatory land-reform policy. Then came the fitting, and as Winslet took a deep breath in (remember, these are tight garments), there she saw it in all its ghastly gaudiness, giving the scene a new dimension. \u201cThat damn red lining!\u201d Winslet remembers thinking in the moment. \u201cConsolata just fell about on the ground laughing. She couldn\u2019t stop. I was like, \u2018Okay, we\u2019re going to go with the red lining.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"AssetEmbedAssetContainer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB responsive-asset AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"ResponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Image may contain Kate Winslet Guillaume Gallienne Adult Person Electrical Device Microphone and Leisure Activities\" class=\"ResponsiveImageContainer-eybHBd fptoWY responsive-image__image\" src=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_120,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_240,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 240w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_320,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_640,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_960,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 960w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_1280,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/65e26344a2efee8037d03872\/master\/w_1600,c_limit\/guillaume-gallienne-kate-winslet.jpeg 1600w\" sizes=\"100vw\"\/><\/noscript><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">\u201cThe more power you get, the more out of touch you become, the more ridiculous you become, and in some ways, the more laughable you become,\u201d Will Tracy says. \u201cThat\u2019s always how I saw Elena a little bit, and Kate saw this immediately as well.\u201d This guided the pair\u2019s approach to telling a story about an authoritarian figure at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise\u2014while also keeping their feet planted firmly in their own bizarro universe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Winslet had no model when it came to crafting Elena, whose ailments include an aversion to humidity, a profound fear of germs, and a clear dictator complex. \u201cThere have been horrendous dictators for centuries, and there will be for centuries to come, and people will draw from the show whatever they choose to, precisely because of that geopolitical backdrop,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it was my job to always make sure that I was sticking by the choices that I was making to play this delusional woman living in a fictional country in an invented part of Central Europe.\u201d Tracy points to <em>The Regime<\/em>\u2019s central, twisted love story to develop this character outside of any obvious allegorical framing, and toward something more specific to her flaws: \u201cShe created the state that abused this guy, and he\u2019s part of the mass throngs of devotional millions who have warped this person\u2019s brain with fame and power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">That warping effect is never more evident in the premiere episode than when Elena sings Chicago\u2019s \u201cIf You Leave Me Now\u201d at a state dinner. She is utterly, magnificently terrible. Winslet was first tasked to record the scene at the iconic Abbey Road, where the Beatles recorded, and she tried to sing it, well, not terribly. Stephen Frears told her the performance simply wasn\u2019t working. She asked what she should do to fix things; he gave her one clear direction: \u201cSing it badly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cIt\u2019s actually quite difficult to sing badly, to find the really bad version of the bad key and keep doing the same thing every time,\u201d Winslet says with a laugh. Of course, Winslet being Winslet, she nailed the assignment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">It took awhile to get there, but the scene had been core to <em>The Regime<\/em> from its earliest inception. It was there from the very first version of Tracy\u2019s pilot. \u201cThe autocrat on stage singing a soft rock song,\u201d as the creator describes it. Somehow, there\u2019s no better way to sum up the most ridiculous achievement of Winslet\u2019s career.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"paywall\"\/>\n<p><em>Listen to<\/em> Vanity Fair\u2019<em>s<\/em> Little Gold Men <em>podcast now.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure class=\"CneAudioEmbedFigure-bRoyFa cjLQOE\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/kate-winslet-the-regime-character-building-awards-insider\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The brilliance of Kate Winslet\u2019s performance in The Regime is that, from beginning to end, something about it feels off. The voice, the look, the movement\u2014something\u2019s very amiss in the calibration. Winslet brilliantly embodies that internal discombobulation. \u201cThis is a woman in an imagined mental and physical state of decline,\u201d the Oscar winner tells me. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,6766,31,1606],"class_list":{"0":"post-80151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-character-building","10":"tag-hbo","11":"tag-kate-winslet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}