In Part Two of IndieWire's interview with the Emmy contender, Winslet talks about how she built out Mare Sheehan's tragic backstory.

[Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for the entirety of “Mare of Easttown,” including the finale, “Sacrament.”]

“Mare of Easttown” is all about secrets so it should come as no surprise to hear that perhaps the best preparation Kate Winslet had for stepping into the shoes of Mare Sheehan came in the form of keeping a big secret from her children.

“I’m just so relieved that I don’t have to keep the secret about Ryan anymore,” Winslet said, her first observation in a post-finale interview with IndieWire. “I hadn’t even told my teenagers, my older kids were 17 and 20. I first read the script and, in particular, Episode 7 in June of 2018. I share everything about my job with my kids and they ask questions and they love it. Like, they’re really fascinated and they have cool, interesting things to say.”

“To have kept that from them was so hard. My husband had read everything, so the two of us would so often find ourselves literally having hushed discussions in, like, closets about Episode 7 because we couldn’t have the kids hear anything.”

The idea of trying to protect the kids from themselves is especially poignant given that so much of the drama at the heart of the HBO limited series comes down to those necessary moments when children slip from your grasp and make their own decisions, with consequences that can too easily be costly. That’s true for Ryan Ross, who was ultimately revealed to be the murderer in the case Mare spent the series attempting to solve, but also for Mare’s own son, whose mental illness led him to a place that she could not follow.

“Mare of Easttown” was the first time that the actress had committed herself to active executive producing, working in close cooperation with the show’s creator Brad Ingelsby and Craig Zobel, director of all seven episodes. With the production delayed due to the pandemic, much of the collaboration was done via messages, emails, and video meetings, with Winslet an active part of the conversation, unafraid to push back with her point of view during disagreements.

As if that weren’t enough, Winslet was also responsible for locking down Julianne Nicholson for the tortured role of Lori Ross, who through the course of the series finds out that her husband had an affair with his teenage first cousin once-removed and had a child with her, sparking Lori’s son Ryan to accidentally murder his second cousin. All the while, Lori remains Mare’s rock and best friend, even when she has to lie to protect her family.

But Winslet was already fully aware of how Nicholson functioned as a mother and a wife, largely due to the fact that the two women have known each other for ages.

Nicholson’s husband, actor Jonathan Cake was good friends with Winslet’s second husband, Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes. Consequently, Winslet was present at Nicholson and Cake’s wedding. She held Nicholson’s son in her arms when he was less than 24 hours old. The women had real and meaningful connections that bound them, just as Mare and Lori did, intimacy that cannot be bluffed.

“I just could never imagine anyone else but Julianne playing Laurie,” Winslet said. “I love her as an actress. She has a very unique quality and she has a look about her. There’s a translucency to her skin that I just find mesmerizing to watch combined with her beautiful sleight of hand when it comes to performance work. And I just felt that there’s a gentleness to her as a person and as a mother that I’ve seen myself that I absolutely knew we needed for Laurie. What I didn’t know was how hard it was going to be to actually get her to say yes —not because she didn’t love the character because she did — but because she has two children. And a husband who’s an actor. And she lives in California.”

Before Nicholson could make a decision, Winslet had to come clean. Nicholson wanted to say yes. She wanted to dive into the role but there was just one, niggling concern that was weighing her down. She needed to know what happened in Episode 7.

“I remember her saying to me, ‘Listen, I I really want to do this. But I just need to know what happens. Can you just slip me the script or just tell me?’ and I said to her, ‘I I can’t. I mustn’t. I mustn’t. But if you don’t say yes to playing this part, I think I can promise you that you are going to regret it.'”

That was enough for Nicholson, secrets be damned.

“She was like ‘OK, I’m in,'” Winslet said. “So she said yes without reading [Episode 7]. I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe we got her. And yeah, I just felt so connected to her in every single thing we had together. “There was an inherent trust and inbuilt history. It was it was so special to look into those beautiful pale green eyes of hers and and to act with her was so special.”

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