Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Good Kate Winslet (lass) Looks Back on her Feats of Acting

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

Some exciting news—The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo. Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member‑only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind‑the‑scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show—a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. We’ve got a proper festive treat for you in this week’s Christmas week Take special. The one and only Kate Winslet—Oscar winner, Hollywood royalty and all round very good egg. She’s given acclaimed performances as an actress in films like Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sense and Sensibility, Steve Jobs and more—as well as in HBO’s Mare of Easttown series. She looks back over all that with Simon and Mark in this bumper chat—plus this time she’s getting behind the camera to direct her first film, Goodbye June. It’s a Christmas movie about a dysfunctional family thrown together when the elderly matriarch (June) falls ill during the festive period. As well as directing, Winslet plays Julia, one of June's four adult children. She came in person to our studio to unpack it with the Good Doctors—and she was so brilliant that she gets this Christmas Take special all to herself. She talks about her experiences as a debut director, working with her screenwriter son Joe Anders, and the incredible cast—from Helen Mirren and Timothy Spall to Toni Colette, Johnny Flynn and Andrea Riseborough. We even got a sneak peak of what a Winslet Christmas looks like. You won’t want to miss this. Happy holidays one and all! You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We salute you. So a little Christmas bonus, I think. First of all, you can see us both in the same room. That's a bonus? I think it is a bonus. And we get to spend much longer than we normally get with a superstar. Yes. Who is Kate Winslet, who has a new.

movie out called Goodbye June. I keep on wanting to say goodbye to Jane, which I know as a Slade fan, you'll, but genuinely. Good bye to Jane, as they spell. Goodbye to Jane, which is not the name of this film, because it's out tomorrow on Netflix. Yeah, so the films in Cinemars at the moment, we reviewed it when it came out in Cinemas, and I was very, very struck by it, and it's on Netflix tomorrow, and it has a Christmas setting, so it is a melancholy story about a family losing their matriarch, but it's also kind of got a lot of laughter and a lot of joy in it. And it is, most importantly, the feature directorial debut for Kate Windsor. So although she's been in the industry for, you know, many decades, this is her first time as director. And I think she's done a

brilliant job. And you get to see and hear our conversation with Kate after this. I've never, I've never found a better culinary pairing. And Guinness and Paul's Gratchin's con. I know. Dad, shut up. I can't hear what else say. What? Go on house. Okay. No, no. If mum can't go home, she'll have to stay at mine and that's that.

Do you mean to your house, Molly? Of course. Who else is? To stay with her. Ask us. Do you? Yes, to stay with me. And then Connor and you and dad, Helen, can stay with Julia.

Yeah. Yeah, great. Whatever. Yeah. Absolutely fine. That's a very good idea. Plenty of room. Okay, okay. Okay, that's good.

Yeah. Oh my God. What happened? Dad forgot to turn and tap, sir. No, I never. No, I never did. It is unbelievable. Mercury is in retrograde, though. You know that. Okay, moving on. And that is a clip from Goodbye June.

It's director. And one of its stars is none other than Kate Winslet, CBE. No one says the CBE part. Yeah, well, okay, let's do. That's so funny. Does that mean I can command you? Kate Wins, yes, because I'm only MBE. So I'm lower than you. There you go.

I'm not anything, all right. Well, you should be. Let's write a letter. Okay. Okay. Instead of CV, one Academy Award, 2M is, 5 BAFTAs, 5 Golden Globes and many other things. That's worse.

And before we go any further, so we're, happy Christmas, by the way. Happy Christmas. And we're speaking on December the 1st. And I brought you this because it's the first chocolate out of our Advent calendar. Oh. And it's got a one on it and it's in a box. How about that? That's so lovely.

Lovely. You sort of miss out on Advent calendars as a grown-up. I know. I think they're very important, aren't they? So there you go. Oh, it's got a sort of a pralini feel to it because it's dense. Yes? Which I appreciate. You can enjoy it at your leisure. Thank you. I will.

Oh, that's so nice. Did you bring Kate anything? No. Okay. He's done a lot for me recently. It's fine. He's brought himself. Yeah, well done.

Well, it's lovely to have you in the studio. Thank you for having me. Isn't it? It's fantastic, yes. So there's lots to talk about. Introduce us to your film. Just give us some opening ideas to work with here. Okay.

So Good by June is set in the present day in Cheltenham, in the UK. And essentially it follows a sort of a disparate family of siblings as they all have to come together to deal with the impending loss of their mother, June, played by Helen Mirren. And it's ultimately a story about how a family are pulled closer together because of this experience that they're all sharing. And they haven't seen each other in a long time, sort of interfamily relationships are all quite delicate and tricky. In particular, a relationship between two of the sisters, Molly and Julia, played by myself and Andrea Reisborough. And it's really a fascinating study in how the matriarch can be the ultimate matriarch. until the very, very end and how this woman, in spite of how weak she is growing, somehow

still loves and supports them all in order to help her leave the world at peace. And it's colourful and interesting and it's very funny as well as touching. And it was written by my son. Well, I was going to say integral to the story is how this script came to your desk. So just explain how that happened. So my son, Joe, who's now 21, he's about to turn 22. He had left school. He was the COVID generation who didn't do GCSEs. And he was really feeling a need to get just out into the world to meet the world and let it kind of reveal to him what on earth he was supposed to do next. And he'd done a bit of acting. He wasn't sure about it. And I think also slightly coming to terms with, okay, am I going to make that decision to do?

to go into the film industry potentially with a mother and a father, both established, well established in the industry already. And he just tried his hardest to put that to one side, and he's always written. So we have a refrigerator covered in poems and stories that he wrote when he was eight and nine years old. And they are very wonderful pieces of writing. So it didn't surprise me when he decided to pluck up the courage to apply for a place on a screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School. And he'd written a short film and he was accepted. And he was there for an intense six months and they had to write a screenplay. That was their assignment.

And he was encouraged by a fantastic tutor, write what you know. And beyond COVID, the most significant thing that had happened in Joe's life was the loss of his grandmother, my mum, when he was a teenager. And he was very much a part of being in these spaces that occupied all of our families. quite unusually for the first time in a long time because when families grow up and you have kids and move away and get busy you only really congregate at sort of Christmas or funerals essentially and marriages

and so he remembered feeling so acutely how we were all there because we came from this one woman so whilst the story is fictional he took that as his emotional backdrop and he set a film at Christmas about a fictional family who were dealing with something that I think in this country we're not particularly good at talking about, which is loss and grief and all the, you know, whirlwind of emotions that comes with that, especially when you're from a big family. Now, every parent listening to this conversation will have been brought stuff back from school by their kids, and we've all said positive things, and I'm just, I mean, obviously, the film is extraordinary, but I wonder if you were the best critic. because you are, first of all, his mum.

Yeah, well, so he, so I read, he'd finished his course and he'd written this script. And actually, he still had about 20 to 25 pages to go to finish it. And he sort of sheepishly said, actually not even sheepishly, he was nervous. And he said to me, look, I've written this thing. Yeah, it's, you know, it's probably not very good. And just, you know, you don't have to read it. But actually, would you read it? would you read it and, you know, just tell me what you think and just if you think it's crap,

you know, just don't be too honest. Anyway, so I read it and it was very, very clearly not a load of rubbish at all, in fact, quite the opposite. And I said to him, well, well, you can clearly write screenplays. And he was like, what are you talking about? I said, look, just finish it. And let's have another conversation because I think this could be a film, Joe. Really, I do.

And he sort of looked at me and was like, mum, no, don't, mum, no, don't do that thing. don't do that mum thing. Just tell me the truth. You don't need to big me up. Just tell me. You know, I can, I'm just going to write something else. It's meant to be an experiment. And I said, finish it. And then we'll have a proper conversation. And I just have to be honest, really and truly, he knew what he was doing. And I think whilst he had not read lots and lots of screenplays in his life, he has kind of grown up around them with me getting him to test, test me on my lines for as long as he could read and you know read dialogue back to me and he's just he just does have an understanding of film and of characters and he's always been a very observant person

forever with a notebook in his back pocket and just fascinated by people and the human condition in a in a similar way to myself to be honest and and he worked on it some more and when I really got him to believe that I wanted to make this into a film. I said, look, I will produce it and I'd love to play one of the sisters. And after about a year of further development and various different iterations of the script and redrafting certain things and getting very good at listening to notes and constructive criticisms, there was a screenplay that was ready to be sent out to directors and Netflix had shown some interest in it. And I suddenly realized I couldn't let it go. And I just thought, you know, if I never do this again, if this is the only moment in my life, I direct

a film, I know I'd regret it if it wasn't this one. And I also wanted for him to have a really meaningful experience in seeing brilliant actors bring these characters that he had created to life. Because as a screenwriter, they're not on set. They really aren't. And people, I think, don't necessarily know that. But they spend, you know, sometimes years drafting a screenplay and getting it right and then they come to a read-through before you start filming and they're not they're not there they might sort of pop in for a visit and see everybody when there's like a big important scene and then come for a kind of a dinner at the end that typically nobody really wants to go to anyway because you all just want to go home but i wanted for joe to be able to see it come together

and and i did feel that as the person directing it i could not only offer him that but given that i've been doing this job now for 33 years you know you get to know the good people, the great crew, not just good at their jobs, but nice, kind people and an on set environment, particularly on a film like this that is about family. It had to feel like a family just because I knew it would have an impact on the immediate rhythm and feel of each day. And I have seven children in the film. And so I had to create an environment that was fun and safe for them. And I wanted Joe to be a part of that. And he was. And it was really, It was really wonderful.

Okay, we're going to take a break. More with Kate in just a second. Mark, I was just wondering, you know, as I do, how do you keep your internet connection Elfie this Christmas? Boomtish. Use NordVPN for dark web alerts or to help protect you from hackers while browsing public Wi-Fi?

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Check the link in the description. This is not a drill. For the first time in Lipstick on the Rim history, a real housewife has entered the studio. And not just any housewife, Rachel Zoe, the fashion legend herself. Did we expect styling stories, glam, chaos, stories from the past decade and a full cat eye at all times? Yes. Did we expect her to open up about divorce, rediscovering herself, joining Housewives as a zero prep, and what it feels like to finally feel like her again? No. It is vulnerable, iconic, hilarious, and one of our favorite conversations ever. The Real Housewives have officially entered the chat. Listen now. So it's his first screenplay, your first, your directorial debut, and we've had this conversation. a bit before, but I think it's brilliantly directed and really confident direction.

Thank you, Mark. One of the things that you've talked about was making the environment on the set. A lot of the set takes place in a hospital room, was taking the microphones out of the way, taking the cameras out of the way. Do you want to tell us how you did that? Because I think it's not something you'd immediately notice when you were watching the film. No, I mean, you watch a film and some people know how that film comes together and some people don't. Typically, we didn't have a massive budget and films that have a sort of a smaller

budget, you know, you have to kind of shoot quite quickly. But still, sometimes you'll have maybe nine weeks, 10 weeks, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example, wasn't a colossal budget, but that was quite a long shoot because it was very detailed. That was sort of more 15, 16 weeks. I had 35 days, which is seven weeks to shoot this entire thing. I must have been absolutely mad. And going into it, as you say, Joe doing it for the first time. me doing it for the first time, you know, it's in my nature to want to elevate people. But with something like this, I knew that if we had other first timers across other departments, we would all be able to kind of hold hands and run at it together on an equal playing field. So we had a first time

composer, a first time production designer and a first time costume designer. And our composer, this is this brilliant, wonderful musician named Ben Harlan. And he had actually been my older children's music teacher throughout their whole school life and he actually taught our youngest as well for a couple of years and then he took himself to school he got a place at Trinity for composition

and at the end of his second year Joe and I had a conversation where Joe did say to me my God wouldn't it be brilliant if Ben could compose his film and I said well why not let's ask him and so we did and he's done the most extraordinary job and Alison Harvey are production

designer she's been in the world of onset props for years, well-loved, great reputation. And I kept hearing this woman's name. And I thought, well, if she's so amazing at on-set work, why isn't she designing? And I thought, I bet she had a family and she took over. And so I had a Zoom with her. And I said, I just have to ask you, why haven't you designed? She said, I thought, maybe that ship had probably sailed for me because I had my family quite young. I was like, okay, come on. And our costume designer, Grace, again, quite young. I'd work with her on Ammonite. And it was just something she was ready to do. And what happens when you pull people together in that way is that the sense

of kind of being equals is really palpable, honestly, when you have to sit down and work out how much money you've got to spend on certain things. You can have all those conversations knowing that the words coming out of the director's mouth are the truth and this is what we're going to do and we've got to do it with limited means and let's just go for it. And talking about the sort of on-set experience in terms of getting rid of microphones and things like that. You know, sound design is so important on a film. And I don't think people would necessarily think about that so much unless it's like an action film or Bond or Star Wars or something where you can, the sound is such an immersive part of the experience. Exactly. Right. And so, but but our sound designer Denise Yard, I said to her

early on, you know, look, is there a way that we can record our sound really secretively? But because there's something that happens on a film set. You have overhead booms, you know, a huge great microphone on a long pole. And it's very visible. And these people are extraordinary and they hold their arms above their heads for sometimes in the case of the Steve Jobs film that we were talking about years ago. I had mentioned that before we started speaking about it was the last time I interviewed you. Yeah, yeah.

So for example, you know, with Sorkin dialogue directed by Danny Boyle and you're shooting, you know, a 15-page scene in one long, a steady cam. take. It's a nine and a half minute take where there's a incredible boom operator who's falling apart because he's holding a boom above his head and catching all that dialogue. Now, when you have a film that takes place largely in one room, one corridor, you need to keep the space as clear of crew as possible for the actors, number one. But secondly, when you have seven children and you're waving something above their heads, those children are going to look in the sky at the big moving pole. So that was another reason for wanting to sort of do away with that

distraction. But also it was very much about giving Helen Mirren, Tim Spall, these brilliant actors who've done it forever, giving them an experience that felt different. Because I knew as a director, there's no point me trying to come up with something new that I can tell them or offer them or, you know, don't get clever, Winslet, don't be tricksy. And I also don't like tricking people. It's not in my nature. And I myself know that if directors try and get something out of me or they're trying something new or there's something a bit manipulative about a thing they might say. You smell it out and you immediately don't trust that person. And I just didn't want that. So somehow clearing the space of extra crew and this distraction

of booms over our heads made a really big difference. And Helen Mirren did actually say to me, gosh, it's sound design. She said on this film, she said, it's very subtle, isn't it? I just sort of don't notice them. And I just did an internal jump for joy because not for myself, but for her because she was feeling the difference. So lots of hidden microphones everywhere as well as as well as of course actors individually miced which is typical standard but typically you don't really radio mic children small children but we did because those kids were walking into this make-believe world that we had all established and children you can't really get children to act not when they're five years old unless they're phenomenally gifted but what you can do is that you can create a

situation within which they can just be children. And anyone who's experienced the loss of a parent or the loss of anybody in a situation where you have small children around and you can't leave them standing at the hospital door or playing with somebody at reception, they're in those spaces and they read the adults' faces and they see there's someone's feeling sad. But then they get on with the colouring in or the stickers or hiding under the bed. And so creating environments in which those kids could just do all of that meant that they would say things that could have just been gold dust and was gold dust. And all of it was completely usable when we got into the final mix. And those kids, they were just in it improvising with everybody else responding to what was

being said to them. You know, if an adult asked them a question on camera, they were just full-on answer it the way a child would. And it was really quite something. And locking off cameras, you know, we weren't able to do it as much as I would have liked. But we did. did do it enough that for the more intimate scenes where it's just two people and the emotion is very small and quiet, there's nothing more frustrating than being aware that there are camera people watching you. And so where possible, we would set the cameras in position. We were able to lock things off and then everybody would actually walk away. So, you know, you hear about a closed set. A closed set is never really a closed set.

There's always a camera person behind a camera. There's typically a boom operator dangling the pole over the top of the set. But this was properly empty of any people at all at times. And it really, really helped just in terms of almost disarming the actors, not in a manipulative way, but just giving them a space that felt completely empty of all other human beings so they could just focus on the scene with the other person and the emotion and what was coming out of their mouths. And actually it's quite an efficient way to shoot too because those actors just back themselves up and go again

or redo something if they didn't feel it was right and actually you get through it quite quickly which on a film that was only 35 days kind of came in handy and I only had Helen Mirren for 16 days of those 35 days so it was a bit like hey don't drop any scenes just keep going so doing as much as I could to keep the space really feeling like a real hospital room and it honestly did

and it was quite remarkable how onside the crew were with helping me to create that environment because of course they all have to do their jobs and as long as everyone had time to do their jobs and be prepared for what was needed everyone was so supportive and it was amazing

I just say one note you answered that question as if you've been directing for 30 years did I really? You did? Oh wow look at that well there you go well I've seen it I've been around the block of few times. What kind of a director are you? I think, God, I haven't been asked that yet. What kind of a director am I? The one thing I do know about brilliant actors is they will always show you. They will always show you the way the scene ultimately needs to be. So it doesn't matter how it lands on

the page. It doesn't matter what's discussed in rehearsal. It doesn't matter what shared ideas you have. When someone says action and you're all in it, something happens. And there is a magic that sometimes takes place, and that's always down to the actors. So being fair and making sure that everyone understood what I was doing, I also really did think it was important to tell the actors how I was covering a scene, because sometimes if a scene is particularly emotional, and you know that you're going to be going in for a Big Fat Sandy close up, it's important to say to the actor, you know you better than I do, do you want me to do the close coverage first? Because if you start on big fat wide by take five that person might be completely exhausted and they just need to

do it and sometimes they're ready to go by the time they finish their toast you know so um so can i just what's a big fat wide i know what a wide shot is but what's a big fat sandy close up it's just it's something that some people say i say it just a right in your face close up that's that's from the chin to the forehead just above the eyebrows really close on someone's face you know of the kind that you and i avoid during photo sessions like that. I mostly avoid it too, to be honest. Who's Sandy? I don't know.

It's just something that said. Actually, Australians say it a lot, big fat Sandy Clice up. Maybe it's an Australian thing. But anyway, I've sort of taken it on board. I've done so much stuff in Australia. But so being really communicative, quite honestly, that's something that matters to me a lot. And also just making sure that the actors feel heard.

How did that feel? Do you want to go again? And they might say yes, they might say no. having an idea offering something up if it feels okay saying you know got an idea can I offer it up let me just go again and then maybe tell me then okay great just being being kind and actually being very positive you know because when you walk onto that set it's one thing to be an actor with cast number one written by your name but it's quite another to be an actor and the director and the producer you have to bring the energy right it's going to be a great day you just have to

decide. Sometimes you just actively have to choose. Nothing's going to get in our way. And certainly with children, come on, what should we do? What should we do? What do you want to do in this scene? I've got stickers. I've got the wooden beaded abacus thing. I've got chocolate. Can we do the chocolate? So you're just trying to create a space that means any idea is welcome and mistakes are positively a joy. So what kind of a director sounds like a very good director to me? know. Is that question? No, it's a statement. I'm telling you. Okay. You're telling me.

Not a shouty director. No, God, no shouty. Absolutely no shouty. But you've been on sets with shouty directors. I have. Not very often, but I have. And actually, even when a director is frustrated at something technical that isn't working, if you, the actors, you're standing right there and you feel that frustration, you don't feel that their focus is on. you. And it's not about wanting to be number one. It's about knowing that at the end of the day when the chips are down, no one sees the technical stuff. They see what's going on in the

actors' faces. So sometimes even keeping that from the actors was part of my job. So I've got my first AD, brilliant first AD, Lydia Curry. She's wonderful. She and I would very, very quietly at the beginning of the day, okay, two and a half hours for that. Really only got 45 minutes here. And then I've got to get rid of the baby because the baby's only got 30 minutes of on camera time before I have to switch out for the identical twins. So which way around you? So she and I would do all of that stuff very quietly. And there were times when we would be up against it. And she'd come over and she'd sort of tap the call sheet with her pen and point out how much longer I had. And I would say, I can see you doing it. Go back over there. And she'd be like,

yes, yes, yes. And so we would just find this way of trying to stealthily keep all that stuff hidden, which is really hard when you're in tiny spaces and you're not on huge sound stages, you know. But that's the way it had to be. We're going to take a break. And more with Kate in just a moment. When you're flying Emirates business class, dining on a world-class menu at 40,000 feet, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates, fly better. You talked before about the composer.

the film, you also have a song that you got with a bit of a sort of explain how the song ends up in the film. Okay, so I did keep thinking myself, do we need someone big and punchy to do one song for us? And I was in and out of this idea because sometimes I think if you get a really big name to compose, again, I'm talking like I've done it before, obviously I haven't. But I have observed how sometimes having a huge musical artist can sort of swamp the intention. And so I wanted to find a musical artist who felt appropriate for the film and who has a voice that connects with people and is beautiful to listen to. And one of the things that I did with Joe when he was still writing and he really didn't have much confidence about what he had written, even though I kept telling him it

was good. I said, right, come on. Okay, as an exercise, let's sit down and let's write our wish list of actors to play these parts. Okay, let's do that. So June, Helen Mirren, Bernie, Tim Spall. And Joe's like, you're never going to get them to do it, mum. What are you just, no, they're not going to, no, they're not going to do it. I'm like, no, come on. So we did this exercise. And I said, okay, cinematographer, who do we think? And at that point, directors, because it wasn't going to be me at that stage. And so we had this big fat list. And then Joe had just been to, a festival called Love Supreme, and Gregory Porter had performed. And the set was very, very moving.

And Joe had talked about this a lot when he came back from this festival. And being fans of Gregory Porter in our household. And I have listened to his songs myself as inspiration as an actor over the years. And Joe looked me and he said, wouldn't it be insane if we could get like Gregory Porter to do a song? And I was like, yeah, it would be nuts. Let's put it on the list thinking, well, that will never happen. And then I was about halfway through the edit. And in the edit, you know, you really do start to think about the music

and not just what's being composed by the composer. But you also use a lot of temp score when you're putting a film together, when compositions aren't quite ready and you're just trying to get inspired. And I kept thinking about Gregory Porter. And then I just sort of looked myself in the mirror and was like, for God's sake, Winslet, just bloody right to the guy. Thinking that it would take months to find him and track him down, turns out he was very easy to contact through his management company.

And I just wrote him a long, impassioned letter about the film, about my involvement, about the fact that Joe had written it. And I spoke with real passion and honesty about how meaningful his music is to us, thinking I'd never hear back. And he wrote back and said, I'm at your service. When can I see the movie? I couldn't believe it. I literally couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it at all. I've never met him. Don't know anyone who knows him on a personal level. Nothing. I was pulling no strings. I just went for it. And he saw the film and said, okay, I've got some ideas and started writing and composed just the most beautiful piece which plays immediately over our end credits. And placing the song over the end credits right as we fade to black was again something that was experienced.

with because I tried to use his song somewhere in the middle of the film and it felt wrong because one thing I don't like as an actress and it turns out as a director either, I really don't like false sentiment. I don't like it. I think it's trickery. I think it is manipulative. And I think music can feed into that conceit in a way that can be pushy. And I just was so firm with myself, really strict with myself in the edit. Whenever something started to feel sad, oh, okay, no, we've got to do a funny now. We've got to lift that out. Let's cut to Tony Colette. She's doing the brilliant thing in the corner with the breathing. Okay, great. That stops everyone from cry. Like just trying to hold it and hold it and hold it. And somehow trying Greg's beautiful

song over our montage early on, which I did do, it didn't fit right. We were sort of somehow labeling the film as being something else. Well, it's just hard to describe. but it just didn't quite work. And it worked so beautifully over the end credits because actually he'd written it with that particular sequence in mind and he was right. It fitted where he had intended for it to go.

But it was just amazing. I just couldn't believe he said yes. And being with him when he recorded it. Oh my God. I mean, Joe and I, we both sat there just sobbing. Extraordinary. On the subject of sobbing, it is worth saying that

if you get your family together to watch this film at Christmas, there will be sobbing. Yes. And I was mentioning this to Mark yesterday. So I lost my mother this year in a care home. A lot of the scenes that you were recreating, we kind of did our version but without a Snickers bar where there was no Snickers. Anyway, this film could be sponsored by Snickers.

No Christmas. But we often talk on the show about you take from a film what you bring to it. And I think there will be a lot of people who have been in exactly this position. And it's going to kick hard, isn't it? Well, I think the idea is that it might offer people an opportunity to have conversations that they're scared to have. I think talking about loss, especially when you know that someone's going to go, it's really, really hard. And when you think about other cultures, they have spiritual rhythms and rituals long held for centuries that work for their culture. And actually in this country, I mean, I remember when we lost my mum, I remember thinking, well, now what do we do? And sitting down with my father and Googling wicker coffins. You know, there's no manual.

There isn't one. And somehow, whilst this film is not a manual at all, it's just one fictional account of what a family goes through, I think when you come from big families and even small families, there are conversations that I think in this country we do shy, away from because you think, well, I don't want to do that because it makes me feel sad. Well, of course it makes you feel sad. But at the same time, humorous things do happen. And keeping the humor as a part of this story mattered enormously. And also making it feel and look warm was important to me because I know when I've been in those spaces, it's actually the people who work alongside taking care of people who have life limiting illnesses or they work in hospitals in general. those people are so warm they're doing that by choice, especially palliative care experts.

My goodness me, they will sit there for as long as they need to with either the patient or the patient's families and hold their hand and show them proper, proper love and support. And so bringing that warmth into our story, particularly through the role of Nurse Angel, played by Fizio Akiade, brilliant British actor, it was really necessary to make sure that we kept that alive. and our hospital was based on a derelict hospital in Ravens Court Park in London. It's a beautiful deco-style building that has very old green lino floors with sort of deco-y bands down the sides. But it's that kind of old lino that's so old and so polished that it's gone shiny that you almost don't really see anymore. And so we were very, very inspired by that look and these sort of red bands that ran down the sides of the corridors and little bits of chrome here and there. And so we took that as our template. We actually did shoot a couple of scenes in that hospital. But we took that as our template for what we wanted our space to look like.

We built the hospital room. We built the corridor on a soundstage in Halston and made it feel just that little bit less stark. Because everyone who's been in hospitals and spent time in them with either someone who's unwell or is unwell themselves, you know, those overhead lights, they are so, you know, they're very affronting. And emotionally, that can do something to an audience when watching a story that is about loss. And so we didn't want it to feel like that. And that's why I thought Joe setting it at Christmas was such a masterstroke because you get all the touches of the twinkly lights and the sort of British gaudy tinsel, you know, the purples and the reds that I'm constantly trying to hide from my children because I don't want them on the tree. But actually, that is also part of the Britishness of the film. And we were able to really lean into that side of it too, which mattered to me enormously. I love Britain. I love this country. I love our crazy traditions and, you know, endless tins of pointless cabaret's roses that you eat anyway. You do. But it is a part of who we are. And I didn't want to shy away from that. And I also didn't want to do the kind of movie version of it. So we were pretty, yeah, we kept it as real as possible.

On the subject of unreality, do you remember, as I was just walking down the corridor to come to the studio, there's a poster for the holiday, which of course you're in. Do you remember Pete Bradshaw's review of the holiday and how he described where you lived in Britain in that review? Thank God I can giggle about it. I mean, it's quite, I don't read reviews. And I read that one because someone said to me, Kate, it's so mean that it's actually funny. And I thought, okay, and he said something like the holiday was set in the part of England that was accessible only through the back of a wardrobe or something like that. I just really do remember, I do remember that line. But it's a funny one actually thinking about reviews and facing.

facing them as a director and producer and actor in the film because I don't know, how am I going to be able to avoid reading them? It might be quite, I think I'll feel a responsibility for everybody else. It's going to be quite hard. Do you generally feel that not reading them is that, so when you say you don't, I mean a lot of people say they don't, but they do, do you genuinely not read reviews? I genuinely don't.

And I think it's because when I started out doing heavenly creatures and sense and sensibility and in those very early days. I remember people would, my mum would cut them out of newspapers and would send them to me. Oh, this is a lovely one. But clearly it was just a picture that she thought was lovely and hadn't actually read the thing. So then I would sit down being all excited that my mom was excited,

only to discover that actually it's really not very nice being publicly criticised at all. And mainstream media in those days liked to beat me up. And so I realised quite quickly that the only, way I was going to be able to survive this industry was just to not read them. And so I actively don't. And it's a little bit like now, I think, the only way I can compare it is I don't have any social media, but, you know, people having Instagram and TikTok and all these kinds of things, you know, everyone is laying themselves open to comment all of the time. Well, I don't

have any of that. So it's the same for me. If I'm not reading reviews, then I don't have any of that. And I can just do the job and still love the job and care about it. And don't also then react to it in either roles that I choose or things that I'm developing. So it's all about trying to just really stay the course and continue to be creative and interesting and interested. The New York Times yesterday had an article about the holiday. Oh my God. And it was a big kind of, you know, beginning of December and it had this phrase. So obviously you went to read it.

I don't know how much I'm enjoying this now. Okay, go on. Highly watchable and memorably ridiculous. But that's great. That's a good review. I'll tell you what, that's a good review. That's Mary Poppins. It is Mary Poppins.

But no, it's, you know, I'll tell you the thing that's really lovely about the holiday. It is, for so many people at Christmas, it has become part of their family traditions, particularly mothers and daughters. Women will come up to me in waitress, and they see me. They'll see me by the, you know, tea bags. aisle and they'll be and they'll say okay is it you and I'll say well I think it might be and they will say you know we have to say we have a little ritual and then they'll tell me the exact same story about how they sit down mother and daughter and they watch the holiday and they order a takeaway and it's the whole of Britain over it's it's lovely it's a wonderful thing

more with Kate in just a moment We are privileged to be spending so much time with Kate. And just before we broke for the ads, Mark wanted to ask a question. You said that mothers and daughters come up to you and tell you that they have a ritual of watching the holiday. When people approach you in the street, which I'm sure they do do, do you know in advance which film or which program it is, they're going to say, I loved you in this. Typically, it will be, they'll tell me that Titanic was their first date to. the man they then married and have five children with or whatever. So it's Titanic, then very much the holiday. More recently, I have to say, people in the sort of mid-20s generation obsessed

with Eternal Sunshine. All of a sudden, there's another whole swave of people watching it. But also the other one is the episode of extras that I did with Stephen Merchant and Ricky Jervais. People walk up, they'll say, oh my God, I haven't seen you in March, but I did see extras. Stephen Merchant, of course, he turns up in your film. He does. Return the favour. I was very much. Of all the skills that you've learned over your career, whether it be fossil digging or dressmaking or holding your breath for seven minutes. Is that true, by the way? Yes, it is. Seven minutes and 14 seconds to be. I mean, that is unbelievable. Which of those skills could you reproduce tomorrow if you needed to? I could hold my breath again. Probably not tomorrow because I always feel I have to kind of issue a safety warning with this stuff because otherwise people get in the bath and just try and hold their breath for as long as they can. I mean, I was trained very intensively for almost a month and you literally change the way your body stores oxygen. And it's a sequence of quite specific breathing that you have to learn. before you can do a big long breath hold.

And yeah, I got to the point where it's called, before you do a long breath hold, there's something called a peak inhalation. And rather than just going, which is the top, tiniest part of your lungs, it's a huge long breath, and it starts right at the base of your stomach. And just that inhalation alone,

it would take me about almost 50 seconds just to do that big inhalation and then hold my breath for seven minutes. It's insane. It is insane. It is ridiculous. How long could you hold your breath for, my? Oh, 50 seconds, tops.

Topps. Yeah, absolutely tops. Yeah, I mean, if I were to do it now, I'd probably be the same. But you'd have to go through this breathing sequence. You oxygenate your blood in a certain way, and that's how you do it. But, you know, good old Jim Cameron, he just believes that people are superhuman, and it turns out that sometimes you actually can be. Wow.

And do you get people coming up to you and talking about the mayor of East Town? Because that, I think, is one of your most celebrated roles. I think it's actually your best role. Thank you very much, indeed, Mark. That nearly tipped me over the edge, that one. People do. And actually, a slightly strange thing happened with Mere because it was episodic television.

And with HBO, you know, they don't stream it until they've shown every episode weekly in the good old-fashioned way that we used to, which I just think is brilliant. But people would come up and touch me, which was a bit like Titanic again. I remember being in the silly aisles with a friend of mine. And we were just riding our bikes.

And a woman just went, I just have to touch you. As I was cycling past her to go and buy some eggs. I mean, literally, she was like, are you okay? It was honestly, it sort of did something to people that. I think because the story seemed to really resonate with people during that COVID time, it kind of brought families together on couches and gave them a reason to have something to look forward to week on, week on. And yeah, it was quite extraordinary. People do ask me a lot about mayor. Yeah. What's the thing with touching? It's because they just can't quite believe you're there or because

they want to protect the character? Because you seem to be saying it like it's not an aggressive thing. No, no. But it's invasive. Yes, it is. But at the same time, it's really funny because I, in the context of a character, I almost slightly understand it. Sometimes people want it, sometimes people really wanting to make sure I'm all right.

It's quite bizarre. But again, I think, you know, there's this odd fascination, isn't there, with famous people and famous faces, especially if someone like me or Emma Thompson or, You know, largely in this country, people have grown up watching things that we have done. And, you know, something that people say to me all the time is, oh, you're really short. People think I'm going to be, people think I'm going to be very tall. And I'm only five at five and a half. But people do think I'm going to be about five at nine.

So often people say, oh, aren't you little? And I just think, well, don't quite know what I'm supposed to say to that. Can I ask you a bit about family, only in as much as Daniel DeLois was on our podcast just a few weeks ago. Yeah. Talking about his new movie, first one in eight years, which he had, which he wrote with his son, Ronan, and Ronan's debut director. So it feels to me like a natural partner with this film. They're very different films. But it's a father and a son, mother and a son. And we talked to him about what it was like to work with, professionally work with your son, which is obviously a completely, different experience to cleaning the house together or doing the washing up together. What was that process like when you are being professional? It's your directorial debut. Everyone knows that they have a very high standard from a Kate Winslet movie.

You're working with someone who's never done it before. Was there ever a clash between the paternal instinct and the professional instinct? There wasn't a clash, but I definitely had to find ways of wording things to Joe. if, for example, and this is a sort of a classic, if a scene was too long. You know, sometimes I would say, Tim, it absolutely works, but we don't need that and we don't need that because when you put those words into Andrea Reisbury's mouth, she doesn't even need to open her mouth, you will get it. And him learning how to trust in that was part of his process as a young writer, really learning that. Joe is also brilliant at description. So a lot of

his original screenplay was tons of just the most wonderful description, making me want to leap right into that space. But actually, when you're handing that script to Netflix, no, it really can't be 132 pages. You've got to get it down. So helping him to understand how to be a little bit more efficient with description was something that he, yeah, he just learned that really quickly. I will say in the edit was where I found it probably hardest because I did have to make cuts to scenes that I know Joe had really loved and was very, very proud of. And there was a very big scene actually with Tim Spall and Johnny Flynn that it was a night shoot and it was a very difficult shoot. It was extremely cold. Joe had actually been filming something as an actor in New Zealand and he'd wrapped, jumps on a plane, came home just so he could see this.

scene and it was a really terrific scene. But in the edit, it just, it undercut somehow, it undercut exactly what was going on between this father and a son. And I said to him, I'm going to try taking it out. And he said, you can't. And I said, I'm going to try. He said, you can't. I said, please let me try. And he was like, and he had a proper crisis. And I took it out. There's a sliver of it in, which is a little transitional beat that we do need and it works well. And actually he was really good. He said, I get it. Yeah, I see. You're absolutely right. He was like, ah, God, why did I write all that? I said, because aside from anything else, it worked on the page completely and it totally worked when we shot it and it worked in their

mouths and they acted the scene brilliantly. And so it was all a learning curve. I mean, no, I can honestly say with my hand on my heart, and I would tell you that we didn't have, no, we didn't have massive clashes. We were lucky like that. But he's very, he's bright. He's smart, observant. You know, sometimes he would say to me, oh, have you, you know, have you seen that thing that Tim's doing? You know, like, he's actually breathing onto the batteries of the back of the remote control of the TV. And I was like, yeah, I know. I'm on it on B cam. He's like, well, no, you're not. I'm like, no, you're looking at the A camera monitor. There's Natasha on B cam. She's got Tim breathing on the batteries. It's like, okay. So it was quite, he, sometimes

he was seeing things that I was also appreciating. Little moments that, you know, that give you that sense of family and how different they all are and how they're processing what's happening to them in such wildly different ways, particularly Tim Spall, who is burying what's happening to him emotionally so well to the extent that his entire family just think he's useless. And actually, he's probably suffering the most of all and just keeping a lid on it until the back third of the film. And he has the best line in the film which expresses that when he suddenly says, I think that pork scratchings and Guinness are the perfect combination. And you know that he's saying it because he can't,

he can't admit to the thing that he's just done that has resulted in the whole family plummeting into even further despair. Yeah, you know, I never found a better culinary pairing than Guinness and pork scratchings con. When Joe came up with that line, I just, God, I wet myself laughing. Yeah, it's a good lie. Can you say something about your experience of being, I don't mean this in any way reductively of being a woman director because you started working in the industry in a previous century.

The industry has changed and obviously hasn't changed enough. You have made a film in which you have a number of female HODs and it's, you know, have you experienced sexism in the industry in the role as a director? I mean, are you taken, has it been difficult at all being a first time female director? I mean, yes and no. And I think the reason I'm saying yes and no is because if I said yes, just straight up yes, then what I worry about is that that sounds like there's a whole bunch of us burning our bras and trying to, you know, say action and cut. But actually, I just think what it is

is there's this very strange thing with women, especially when you're an actress who transitions into directing. People just think that you're a little bit too vain and want to stay in your trailer all day and will you really do it? Well, the thing is about women is that they get things done, especially if you're a mother, you can exist on very little sleep and you know how to keep going. And you also just know that if you stop, it all stops. So what I would say is that I think there is a different, there's a different language that is used when addressing female directors to male directors. There's a different set of language that is used talking to actresses who become directors as opposed to male actors who become directors.

Strangely with male actors, and this is absolutely no criticism of them at all, because when I think about the brilliant young actors in this country who have been directing recently, it's incredibly exciting. But they're just sort of allowed to get on with it. It's somehow there's this societal assumption that they will automatically know what they're doing, whereas the same assumption is not made of women. Right. And that's not right.

And actually it's not fair because what it does mean is that it will be harder for us to get films made, harder for us to get the kind of budgets that we need to make those films. When you're a woman, you do a huge amount of ringing around and calling in favours. So sometimes with a budget like Good By June, you might be asking people to come and work for less than their weekly rate. I'm talking about department heads and their crew. You know, sometimes people take a little bit of a hit because they want to come and be part of that experience and they want to support you.

And we did have that on Good By June. But there's a, yeah, I mean, I do remember someone in a position of authority and this was another woman saying this to me. A woman in a position of authority early on said after saying an early cut of the film, which was by no means near to being completed. I think if you could just use a little bit more confidence with some of your choices?

That person would not have said that if I was a man. They simply wouldn't have done. And this person is a really decent human being. And I was able to sit with her and say, we've just got to unlearn this. We've all got to unlearn it. It's in all of us, the men and the women. And it's not, it's really not okay.

I don't quite know how to, you know, continue to try and change it or advocate for other women other than to actually just do it. And that was also a part of the reason why I wanted to direct goodbye June, because having advocated for women in film for the majority of my life, I did think to myself, you know, who am I if I'm not actually doing it and actively trying to change the culture? And I just feel, even if I never do it again, Mark, I feel so proud that I have done it now and done it at a time that I think the film industry is struggling.

I certainly think that smaller films are really, you know, in a terrible state because I think people are less prepared to back them. I also see independent films struggling to get financed. And now an independent film, just for people who are listening and don't know, is when they don't have a studio, there isn't a Netflix. Like I had with Lee, we had multiple private investors who come on board and buy a little piece of the film. But then those people all have to get their money back. You still have to go out and find distribution when the film is made. So you're never stopping trying to sell it. It's very, very hard.

And also when it comes to marketing the film, you have to hope to God that there's enough money set aside to pay for what you need to to market it. And I'm talking about actually where you print your posters and where those posters are pasted up, you know, billboard space costs a lot of money. A huge billboard on Sunset Boulevard is costs a fortune. You know, and if the film is small or people just think, well, it might not get any awards nominations, they just don't bother putting the money behind it. So as a woman, it is honestly constant because people aren't as immediately supportive of female driven pieces. I really do think it's just a fact, sadly.

When you end on the How to Fail podcast, your third failure was the fact you failed to direct. Yes, God, that's right. And this is when you were promoting Lee. Yeah. So, I don't know if you knew that this was coming down the track, but my guess is from listening to what you've been saying, this is not, even though it might not be your son's script next time, but you've got the bit between your teeth, you're going to direct again, aren't you? I don't know. Do you think I might? I hope I do. I mean, I actually hope I really hope I do. It's kind of down to you, isn't it? I mean, when I was on the How to Felt podcast, this was in development, but I didn't know at that point that I was going to direct it. I really hope I do it again because the experience of pulling all those people together,

not just the actors, but the crew as well. I mean, in this country, we have such special film crews. We have people who've started from the ground up who know what it's like to do those low-budget pieces. It's a different energy and the goodwill that gets poured into these projects is just extraordinary. So as an experience of making the film, let alone sitting and watching it, It was really very special and quite unique. And we actually had our cast and crew screening yesterday and there was laughter and tears and huge turnout.

You know, normally people don't want to do those things because they're on a Sunday morning and everyone wants to spend the day with their families. But everyone came and just expressed how grateful they were to have been a part of it. And that's because of all of them. It feels very much like our film, all of us who made it happen.

And that's a feeling that I love. I love pulling groups of great people together. And so I really hope I do it again, yeah. Did you cry, Mark? Yeah, I did. I mean, I saw it. I've seen it a few times now, and the first time I saw it, I knew something of the story because we'd had a conversation about it beforehand.

And I was also kind of quite wary of it because, you know, I lost my mother not so long ago. But no, I thought it was, but the thing that actually surprised me more was how much I laughed. Yeah, good. And I do think that, and I think the thing that you're saying about when people are in that circumstance, What you forget is there is a lot of laughter. There is a lot of everything else going on. And I do think that we do need to find a better way of talking about it rather than just going, okay, people are dying.

Let's not talk about it. Yeah. I think you're right. And that's why keeping that humor alive mattered so much. And that's why, you know, Tim, I mean, Tim's ball is, he's just such an extraordinary actor, playing a role that could easily come across as a sort of a bumbling, you know, slightly dysfunctional dad who's in denial, but actually the subtlety and the nuance and the tiny looks and my God, I mean, you feel a world of pain and regret in this man and not just

how he has been a husband and a father, but in how he needs to now be in a very short space of time in order to make it not just okay for the whole family and for his wife, but for himself. And it's a really, God, it's a beautiful performance. But again, he's very, very funny, Tony Colette. I mean, she plays the one sister who's kind of wacky slightly off the wall and does very unpredictable things. And just thank God. Because again, you know, if ever I felt, okay, hang on, are we slipping into something a bit too sad too soon? Just go to Tony. She's doing something brilliant in the corner. And she always was. We have 60 seconds left. What's Christmas at your house like? Oh my gosh. Christmas at our house is lots of food, lots of chaos,

all the great traditions. There's usually a bit of cold water swimming. sorry. And yeah, you know, blustery walks and just loads of people, lots of loading and unloading of the dishwasher and me usually burning myself on the, you know, the oven trays as I'm yanking things out and trying not to drop the turkey on the floor. Cold water swimming. I did actually drop the turkey on the floor last year. And when you do the cold water swimming, do you say, hey, family, guess you can hold their breath the longest? I'm going to do it for seven minutes. And then you'll disappear. No, I've, you know, the thing is I've, you know, I am actually not a very competitive person. I'm determined, which is very different.

Yeah, there is often a thing of, you know, who can stay in for the longest. But it's usually my husband, Ned, because he's this kind of ridiculous superhuman nutcase. So, yeah, he's usually... We like him very much because he wrote into the show once. Oh, yes, he did. He did write into the show, didn't he? Good old Ned. He loves the podcast.

What a top man And Kate, thank you so much for coming in It's been a pleasure to speak to you Your movie is on Netflix Yeah, which people can enjoy They just need to know that they will laugh And they will cry Yes, I think they will probably do both quite a lot

It's like Christmas Happy Christmas to you It's like Christmas Thank you Thank you Hey Simon Apparently we've got 20 seconds To tell people how fabulous NordVPN is

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