Kate Winslet felt like she was ‘reliving’ mother’s death while shooting new film
By Hannah Roberts, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet has said she felt like she was “reliving” what happened when her mother died while directing and starring in the film Goodbye June.
The movie takes place before Christmas when four adult siblings and their father have to band together upon learning of their mother’s decline in health.
Dame Helen Mirren plays June in the film, which also stars Australian actress Toni Collette, musician Johnny Flynn, Oblivion star Andrea Riseborough and Bafta TV award winner Timothy Spall.
Winslet told Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast: “I think having lost my own mum in 2017, which still feels like yesterday, it was inevitable that however much I would try and keep that private experience separate to my day-to-day experience of playing Julia, one of the daughters, and directing Helen Mirren and watching her go through what she went through to play this part.
“It wasn’t necessarily cathartic, but there were days when I was literally reliving what happened when I lost my own mum, even though our film is fictional. And I would find myself strangely trying to almost hide in a funny way.
“So in the more intimate scenes, perhaps between Helen Mirren and Tim Spall, you know, I would just sit very quietly in the room that we were shooting in and I would hide behind Max, our lovely focus puller, and I would just sit with him quietly watching his monitor and sort of crying on his back.
“I mean, I remember many times doing that and I’m just lucky that he’s someone I worked with before, with HBO on a very big six-month job called The Regime.
“And he was just a great spirit to sort of sidle up to in those moments when I think I did feel very vulnerable because it did bring all that stuff up.
“And actually in this country, I don’t think we’re very good at talking about loss. I don’t think we’re very good at processing grief.
“And in an interesting way it did bring up a lot of those conversations and people were quite grateful to be able to have them, not just the cast, but sometimes the crew as well.”
Winslet, who makes her directorial debut with the film, said: “I felt proud of myself, as a woman, at this time of my life, I just turned 50, and to be doing something that I watched so many men do before and I’d seen male actors transition into directing and have done really successfully and largely without any judgment or scrutiny, and it’s just not the same for girls.
“It feels like for you personally, not only is this an amazing challenge for you to make that switch, but also you’re doing it on behalf of women to help this cultural shift in the very male-dominated Hollywood directing scene.”
The film, part inspired by her mother’s death, was written by Winslet’s son Joe Anders, and arrives to select Irish cinemas on December 12th and on Netflix on Christmas Eve.
