In 2022, Kate Winslet went to the London home of director Stephen Frears to discuss HBO’s political satire “The Regime.”
She’d been cast in the role of Elena Vernham, a narcissistic European autocrat, and Frears had been pinpointed by the production as a potential director.
“I was offered a cup of tea, which I then ended up making myself because he clearly had no intention of making the tea for me at all,” Winslet says. “In fact, he didn’t even seem to know where the cups were.” (The British use the phrase “Shall I be mother?” when offering to be in charge of the kettle at teatime, and Winslet, a mother of three, has some experience there.) Over the tea and some chocolate biscuits, she asked the director how he believed Elena should be played.
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