On Sunday, April 18^th, the new series, Mare of Easttown, created by Brad Ingelsby and starring Kate Winslet, will premiere on HBO and be available to stream on HBO Max. The limited series follows Mare (Winslet), as a detective investigating a local murder in Pennsylvania while also dealing with her own problems.

In preparation, Ingelsby, who also serves as a writer and showrunner on the series, as well as executive producer and director Craig Zobel and star Winslet, recently talked to journalists in a virtual TCA panel as part of the winter press tour in which SciFi Vision was able to take part.

When discussing what it was that first interested her in the project, Winslet told SciFi Vision, that when she got sent the first two episodes she was in the middle of filming Ammonite.  “Wrapping my head around how I would make this jump from the character I was playing at the time to being Mare Sheehan, it was like one of the biggest challenges I think I've ever been slapped with.

“She’s nothing like me, so that’s pretty scary in a great way if you're an actor like me who likes to feel terrified and exposed. [laughs] I just had never done anything like this and was excited to read something that just gripped me right away.  I really felt the sense of not just who she was, but the world that she lives in, where she comes from, that sense of community, being so entrenched in a society that you sort of forget who you are from time to time, and the sense of responsibility/burdens that Mare carries - for lots of reasons to do with her backstory - really, really intrigued me. But the story has such a heart to it, and it’s rooted in so much truth, and it just really resonated with me.

“I was excited to work with HBO again, having done Mildred Pierce with them back in 2010, and I wanted to be part of an ensemble.  There's nothing more luxurious for an actor to spend time in the company of other wonderful actors.  I knew with the strength of the scripts that HBO would really cast up those supporting roles, which they did.

“So, I was very excited by all of it.  It sort of came at the perfect time in many ways for me where I was looking for something that was going to consume me as much as this would, and it certainly did.  So yeah, I feel very lucky that it came along.”

The actress also told journalists, however, that there was one thing she did feel she had in common with her character. “I think the one thing I did feel I had in common with Mare that I quite honestly was able to lean on a lot, was that real sense of family and how much it means to her to hold that together at all costs.  And also, to be able to admit to herself from time to time that she has failed in a lot of areas and tries desperately to correct those errors, and to hold everyone as close to her as she can, even if she's a difficult person to live with from time to time.  It doesn't change the fact that her love for her family is the thing that bolts her down and drives her in life and is her number one priority.  That was something that I was able to connect with in the midst of all these other things that were so far away and so far removed from myself.”

In addition to perfecting the Delco dialect, which drover her crazy, in preparation for the part, she spent time learning to be a detective. “I didn't want to just be quickly shown on the day, so I really did spend several months working with the Easttown Police Department, as well as Marple Township Police Department, and they were all amazing.  I had a great woman named Christine Bleiler who is a female sergeant detective, and she was just incredible and very, very supportive and was on set with us a lot.”

What she didn’t do to prepare was watch scripted crime dramas, in fact, she deliberately avoided that. She did, however, real crime drama and footage.

During the panel,Ingelsby talked about filming the series on location and why it was important. “It's a small town in Pennsylvania where I grew up, really, just outside of Philadelphia, about half an hour south of the city. Actually, we said to HBO when we were setting it up that we had to shoot it where it was actually set in the story, and so they were a hundred percent behind that decision…I think it's just another character in the story that adds a sense of richness and authenticity.”

Zobel added, “We tried to pursue as many locations and things that were very regionally specific, lke anywhere that’s in the suburbs. There certainly are chain restaurants and things that look the same everywhere, but Delaware County and that area of Southern Philadelphia really does look very unique in its own way, and we wanted to make sure we got as much of it in the frame as much as possible.”

Be sure to check out Mare of Easttown when it premieres in April. You can also read the edited transcript of the panel below.


HBO and HBO MAX
TCA Winter Press Tour

Mare of Easttown (HBO)

Brad Ingelsby (Creator/Writer/Showrunner/EP)
Craig Zobel (EP/Director)
Kate Winslet (EP/Stars as Mare Sheehan)

Los Angeles, CA
February 10, 2021

SCIFI VISION: So, Kate, can you first talk about what interested you in this project and why you joined?
 
KATE WINSLET: How long do you have?  [laughs]

Well, I was sent Episodes 1 and 2, I think, right Brad?

BRAD INGELSBY: Yeah.
 
KATE WINSLET: I think I was sent 1 and 2 together initially.  This is going really way back.  It was the end of 2018, and I had a lot going on at the time.  I was filming something, knew that I had something else coming up, which ended up being a film called Ammonite that just came out.  So, wrapping my head around how I would make this jump from the character I was playing at the time to being Mare Sheehan, it was like one of the biggest challenges I think I've ever been slapped with.

She’s nothing like me, so that’s pretty scary in a great way if you're an actor like me who likes to feel terrified and exposed. [laughs] I just had never done anything like this and was excited to read something that just gripped me right away.  I really felt the sense of not just who she was, but the world that she lives in, where she comes from, that sense of community, being so entrenched in a society that you sort of forget who you are from time to time, and the sense of responsibility/burdens that Mare carries - for lots of reasons to do with her backstory - really, really intrigued me. But the story has such a heart to it, and it’s rooted in so much truth, and it just really resonated with me.

I was excited to work with HBO again, having done Mildred Pierce with them back in 2010, and I wanted to be part of an ensemble.  There's nothing more luxurious for an actor to spend time in the company of other wonderful actors.  I knew with the strength of the scripts that HBO would really cast up those supporting roles, which they did.

So, I was very excited by all of it.  It sort of came at the perfect time in many ways for me where I was looking for something that was going to consume me as much as this would, and it certainly did.  So yeah, I feel very lucky that it came along. 

QUESTION: Kate, when you play a character that's close to you, is that difficult, or is it easier to play close to you?  Then, also, how good would you be as a detective?  Would you be a good detective?

KATE WINSLET: No, I'd be a fucking lousy detective. [laughs] I'd be very good at the coffee and the after-beers, definitely.  I'd be good at that, for sure, but this character, in many ways, she felt a million miles away from me, which she is, in terms of the job that she does.  I could never do the job that Mare does.  I could never be a detective.  I don't think I have the mental stamina that is required.  I have stamina, but in a different way.

But I think the one thing I did feel I had in common with Mare that I quite honestly was able to lean on a lot, was that real sense of family and how much it means to her to hold that together at all costs.  And also, to be able to admit to herself from time to time that she has failed in a lot of areas and tries desperately to correct those errors, and to hold everyone as close to her as she can, even if she's a difficult person to live with from time to time.  It doesn't change the fact that her love for her family is the thing that bolts her down and drives her in life and is her number one priority.  That was something that I was able to connect with in the midst of all these other things that were so far away and so far removed from myself.

Not to mention the Delco dialect, which spent months driving me mad whilst I was learning that, and learning how to be a detective, the real nuts and bolts, the detail of that job.  I didn't want to just be quickly shown on the day, so I really did spend several months working with the Easttown Police Department, as well as Marple Township Police Department, and they were all amazing.  I had a great woman named Christine Bleiler who is a female sergeant detective, and she was just incredible and very, very supportive and was on set with us a lot.

That was a very longwinded way of answering your question there, but yeah, as you can see, I have a lot to say about playing Mare.

QUESTION: In terms of your process, did you binge on any TV crime dramas and pull on any traits or personality traits or quirks from popular female TV detectives that we've seen in the past to kind of help you embody this character?

KATE WINSLET: I actually deliberately didn't.  I avoided that.  It's such a good question, actually, because it was a real dilemma for me, not knowing this world at all. Well, where can you find those things?  TV shows.  But what I did do, was I watched a lot of real crime drama and a lot of YouTube footage, particularly of the opioid district, Kensington, because I spent some time working with real police department individuals in blacked-out vehicles driving around those areas in order to learn.  We really wanted to capture the essence of what it's like to really be a detective, you know, from that town.  It's a place that really exists.  The people there were just wonderful and so incredibly helpful with everything we had to do.  If anything ever felt fake or phony, we would say, "Tell us, please tell us right away."

So, this wonderful woman, Christine, who I mentioned to the previous journalist, she would come up to me and say, "Mm, no, that's what they do on TV.  Don’t do that.  No, that doesn't work."  She'd say, "No, they do that on TV," and we were always like, "Ugh, there they go again."  She would correct us, and I would love it so much.  She says, "Sometimes it can be messy.  It can be a fumble.  Things go wrong; allow for that.  Don't worry if it isn't perfect, exactly perfect all the time."  I'd get so obsessed with putting the handcuffs on correctly.  She was like, "Sometimes it's messy.  Sometimes one of them falls off, and you're like, 'Oh, shoot, I've got to do that again on the way to the back of the car.'"

So, that was kind of how I worked through.  It was just observing real people working with real people.  That was what I did more than anything. 

QUESTION: [Kate,] you've always been very good with American dialects, and you've done it again here. 

KATE WINSLET: [Squeals and gives a thumbs up.]

QUESTION: Is that still as much a challenge for you as ever?  Does it come easier now or is it still a major -

KATE WINSLET: Honestly, this one drove me crazy.  I mean, it drove me crazy, because there are really varying degrees of it.  [Speaks different version of American accent] Is it "water"?  Is it "water"?  Is it "water"?  You know, there are lots of different ways of saying it.  And the thing that was hardest for me, of course, was to do it well enough that you kind of shouldn't hear the act of doing it.  I always hate that, when you can hear someone doing a voice or doing an accent.  That's one of the things for me that is more important than anything, is just making it just disappear and blend in.

So, I did spend a long time working with a coach and working with people locally, as well, and it was up there amongst the hardest accents I've ever done.  I'd say it's up there in the top three, for sure, but it adds so much to Mare, to the character.  I didn't want to come up with something that was sort of generalized and make a few kinds of token sounds that were a nod in the direction of the Delco dialect.  I wanted her to really feel as though she had been born and raised there, which is the truth, and that's how we wanted it to feel.

So, I just did the work and kept doing it, and kept doing it, and kept doing it.  Then finally, on the last day of the shoot, I was like, "Oh, I think I've nailed this now." [laughs]

CRAIG ZOBEL: If I could interject there, too, I've seen a lot of actors do accent work, but I cannot be more impressed with anyone else than Kate Winslet with this accent.  She genuinely did work so hard and was so specific.  It's kind of known inside of dialect circles the Delco; the Delaware County accent is known as an incredibly challenging accent, and it was quite impressive just to watch Kate do that.  You did a good job. 

KATE WINSLET: Aw, thanks Craig.  Thank you.  Well, I had lots of dialect tapes sent from Brad's wife, actually, just conversational stuff.

BRAD INGELSBY: [laughs] Yes. 

KATE WINSLET: She'd be having conversations with her parents, and Brad would have shoved an iPhone under her nose recording her.  

BRAD INGELSBY: Exactly. 

KATE WINSLET: So, I was listening to her, because that's where she's from, as well. 

BRAD INGELSBY: Yep. 

KATE WINSLET: I had a lot of support and encouragement.  I was very lucky.

BRAD INGELSBY: Incredible work, Kate.  That's a hard one to lock down and you did a great job with it. 

KATE WINSLET: Oh my god.  Honestly, it drove me nuts.  It drove me completely [nuts]. It was one of the only two dialects in my life that has actually made me throw things.  "I can't do it!  They're gonna think I'm shit!"  I don't get mad, but I got - oh my god.  That dialect and the dialect I had to do in the movie about Steve Jobs, that was another one I’d be like, "Oh my god, I can't do it!  They're going to fire me.  I'm going to get fired." 

QUESTION: Brad and Craig, location is sort of the unscripted character in the ensemble that Kate was talking about.  It's so important.  I can't imagine the story resonating if you were in sunny Miami or glaringly-bright Phoenix, Arizona.  I mean, talk about the importance of the location and the mood and the decision to place this story in - specifically, where is this area? 

BRAD INGELSBY: Well, it's a small town in Pennsylvania where I grew up, really, just outside of Philadelphia, about half an hour south of the city. Actually, we said to HBO when we were setting it up that we had to shoot it where it was actually set in the story, and so they were a hundred percent behind that decision.

I think, just like the accent that we were just chatting about, that the character of the setting is so important, and it's really set where the story is taking place, the actual locations.  So, it's around where I grew up, and I think it's just another character in the story that adds a sense of richness and authenticity.

CRAIG ZOBEL: Yeah, absolutely.  It was interesting. We tried to pursue as many locations and things that were very regionally specific, lke anywhere that’s in the suburbs. There certainly are chain restaurants and things that look the same everywhere, but Delaware County and that area of Southern Philadelphia really does look very unique in its own way, and we wanted to make sure we got as much of it in the frame as much as possible.

QUESTION: Okay, so I am a Delco resident…First of all, yeah, you nailed it.  I call it “deaf Canadian,” the accent, because we're always in Wawa for Heggie.  It is severe.

Following up on [the last] question, because I've driven around the area, and I've seen your filming signs everywhere…did you use not just the locations, but did you employ local Westchester talent or any facilities or anything like that?  Because, like you said, Delaware County, it's really kind of crazy.  You can be in Westchester, which can be really beautiful, and then you can go to New Town Square, like deeper Delaware County.

BRAD INGELSBY: We shot right in Aston. Our studios were right in Aston.  So, we were at Sun Center from the beginning of the shoot until the end, and so we were right in the heart of Aston right there.  So, all the actors were local, all the locations were within a couple miles I think, Craig, of Sun Center.  Some of them we went a little bit deeper out, but for the most part, that was sort of our nucleus, Sun Center right in Aston, Delaware County, and then we kind of used that to spread out a little bit.  But definitely, we were there, and we were bouncing around all those areas.

QUESTION: Aston is deep Delco.

BRAD INGELSBY: It is.  That's where my wife was born, so I spent a lot of time in Aston, a lot of time in Aston.

QUESTION: Did you get to go to any typical like perfect Delco places like Linvilla Orchards or the King of Prussia Mall?

BRAD INGELSBY: Well, I've definitely been there.  I don't know about these guys, but I grew up in the area, so I've been to the mall a bunch of a times. Linvilla, I've taken the kids a number of times.  I don't know if these guys did any of that stuff, but I've certainly spent a lot of time there.

KATE WINSLET: I didn't go to the King of Prussia Mall, no I didn't, but I was -

BRAD INGELSBY: Wawa, Kate, Wawa.

KATE WINSLET: Wawa was a big part of my life for well over a year.  Evan Peters, who plays Colin Zabel, he would go on and on about this sandwich.  He was like, “Okay, you gotta try it.  If you wanna put yourself into like a food coma, you have to have it.”  And I'd be like, “Evan, why would I wanna be in a food coma?”  And he's like, “Oh, it's so great.”  It was like turkey, stuffing, cranberry -

QUESTION: The Gobbler.

KATE WINSLET: Gobbler, it was the Gobbler.  It was the Gobbler, right?  So he kept getting this thing, and I'd be like, “I think I'm worried for you now, Evan; you keep getting this Gobbler.”  He was like, “No, you've gotta have it.”  He was fully committing, I tell you.  It was proper commitment from him, yeah.

QUESTION: You had the Delco experience, good.

KATE WINSLET: Very much so, yes.

QUESTION: Kate, it's obvious by your roles that you love challenges, but what do you do if you're given a part that you really don't think you can do?

KATE WINSLET: Panic.

(Laughter.)

KATE WINSLET: I mean, it's such an interesting question, because - I mean, I will say yes to something and then spend the entire time having said yes up to shooting it, telling myself I can't play this part.  Why did I say yes?  Why did they even ask me?  This was such a terrible idea.  I mean, actors are quite weird like that, and I'm definitely no exception.  I go through this strange like questioning process, I don't know.  I'm a very good procrastinator as well, so I can think and think and think and think for a long time.  Then, the pressure hits, and it's really happening, and I know I have to knuckle under.  Then I just can't think about anything else.

So, the way that I think I deal with fear is just to really try and honestly face it, try very hard to just face it and do the work.  It doesn't matter how long I've been doing this job; you just can't ever rest on your laurels.  My dad has said to me my whole life, "You're only as good as your last gig, babe," and I really believe that to this day, you know, I do.

Plus, we live in a world now where there are so many incredible actresses, and it's so exciting to see this, but it does mean that we all have to contribute.  We've all gotta stay in the game.  You've gotta work hard.  You've gotta deliver on integrity every time.

And I still really feel that.  No matter how much experience I've had maintaining that sort of high standard of work ethic, integrity is really important to me, because I think audiences can tell.  I think they can tell if you're lazy, or you haven't quite learned your lines properly, and you're a little bit sort of skirting over the top of it.  I think audiences can tell, and I think audiences need to be respected fully, because, if it weren't for audiences, then none of us would have a job.

And being part of Mare of Easttown really sort of hammered that into me.  When it's television, you're going right into somebody's home and entertaining them in their front room. You have to honor that place, and you have to deliver, especially when you're working with people like Brad and Craig, these great artists who are bringing so much commitment and so much color.  And so I just try and work hard, honestly.  I just try and work through the fear.

QUESTION: Brad, this show is so intense and so many layers of emotions and situations, was there a point in writing these scripts where you got stuck and, if you did, how did you move past that?

BRAD INGELSBY: Oh yeah, I mean there's always a couple stops along the way where you start to question everything.  I think the way I always overcome that, is it always starts with the character, in this case Mare, and in my mind, that's what the story was about, Mare.

There was a plot that we had to get through, and there were twists and surprises along the way, but it was always about Mare. So, I think if I ever hit a hurdle or an obstacle like that where I didn't know where something was going, I would always just go back to what is this story about, and it's really about Mare.  There're other characters; it's an ensemble, as we know, but it's really about Mare and her having to get through a crisis in her life.  So, whenever I had a moment of going, "I don't know that I can get to the end of this," it would always be, "I gotta go back to Mare."  If I was able to ride that emotion of her character and journey, then I was confident that I could get to the end of the story.