[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for The Regime.]

The Big Picture

‘The Regime’ explores palace life, with Kate Winslet’s character becoming increasingly paranoid about her authoritarian rule.
Matthias Schoenaerts plays a ruthless advisor who pushes Winslet’s character to expand her power, risking the country’s stability.
The series’ rich storytelling and absurdity were guided by brilliant writing, allowing for exploration and collaboration among the talented cast.

From creator/showrunner Will Tracy, the six-episode HBO series The Regime explores the palace life of Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet) as she becomes increasingly paranoid about the state of her authoritarian rule. A hypochondriac that has regular conversations with the corpse of her father in her basement mausoleum, Elena’s iron fist exterior hides a very insecure interior. When Elena finds an unlikely confidant in Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), he encourages her to expand her power, which ultimately threatens to fracture the Central European country she promised to bring together.

As a soldier, Zubak was known for his ruthlessness, which he brings into the palace while he moves up the ranks from servant to trusted chief advisor and eventually to lover. Fighting his own demons, Zubak pushes Elena to overcome hers, and together they are a volatile mix, not only to everyone around them, but also to each other.

During this interview with Collider, Schoenaerts talked about the richness of The Regime’s storytelling, figuring out the tricky tone, how much of the absurdity was there on the pages of the scripts, collaborating with Winslet on a particularly violent moment between their characters, and how the costume designer really helped them to design their characters.

The Regime An authoritarian regime is about to unravel. Follows a story of one year within the walls of its palace.Release Date March 3, 2024 Creator Will Tracy Main Genre Drama Seasons 1 Streaming Service(s) HBO

When It Came to ‘The Regime,’ All the Layers Were Laid Out in the Script
Image via HBO

Collider: With everything going on in this series, it’s easy to see why it would have been so much fun to do something like this.

MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS: Absolutely. The vastness and the richness of what Will Tracy came up with and created for us to play with, and the contrast of it all and everything in between, was fantastic. And then, to go at it with so many extremely talented people in every department, behind the camera and in front of the camera and everything, that’s something to be truly happy about, for real. I’ve seen the six episodes, and it’s fresh, it’s original, it has its own DNA, it has a pace, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, it’s funny, it’s dark, it’s disturbing, it’s heartbreaking, and it just cracks on. It has that pulse and that heartbeat, and you never know where it’s gonna go. And then, there’s the art direction and cinematography. I could go on and on and on. It’s up there. I’m extremely happy to have been part of it, that’s for sure.

Related When To Watch and Stream ‘The Regime’: Kate Winslet Returns to HBO in a New Miniseries Kate Winslet’s award-winning ways might be back on our horizons.

When these scripts came your way, was it always really clear what the tone would be on the page? That seems like such a tricky thing, and this series does it all the way through.

SCHOENAERTS: Yeah, it’s a very thin line. I never heard the word satire. We never spoke about it or labeled it as such because when you label it, it subconsciously conditions everybody in a way that might affect your approach, so we never mentioned it. But it’s in the DNA of the writing and all we can do as actors is bring life to the writing, give texture and colors to the writing, and be of service to the writing, as the writing is of service to us. But we didn’t have to do the work of the writing. The writing is inherently absurd. We had to work with it, but it’s already doing it for us. We had to be dead serious about it.

Matthias Schoenaerts and Kate Winslet Were Given Freedom to Play in ‘The Regime’

When it came to some of the more absurd moments, did you play it a variety of different ways, so that they could determine what worked best, or was it always very clear?

SCHOENAERTS: We were always in dialogue with Stephen [Frears] and Jessica [Hobbs] and Will. This was a team effort, but they really gave us carte blanche to create and come up with stuff. Kate is also somebody that loves to bring life to the moment. It was like, “Okay, let’s try it from this angle.” Because there are so many ways to go at a scene, they’d be like, “Let’s try this. Let’s try that. If it’s bad, let’s do it again.” But then, of course, when the writing is so good, it guides you, and it tells you which direction to go. It doesn’t tell you how to get there, but it tells you it’s that way. You figure out how to get there, but at least you’re not looking for where to go. You know where to go, and now you can just find the most fun way to get there. And Kate, as well as all the other actors, are really great partners in exploring that and messing around with it and playing with it.

I can’t emphasize enough the brilliance of Will’s writing. A lot of it was already on the page. As actors, we amplify that, but we can only amplify what’s on the page and what is given to us. We bring ideas, but it’s already on the page. Even in the linguistics, all the characters have a different language. Even though they all speak English, they really have a different syntax, and it’s not common to see that or read that in a screenplay. Just reading the pages, you could already feel the different characteristics of the characters through the way they would speak their words and their minds. That’s fantastic. That’s proper writing.

It also helps that the cast really embraced that and went for it.

SCHOENAERTS: We keep talking about absurdity as if we’re referring to something that’s not necessarily realistic. But all the actors involved, and the creative team, knew that absurdity is actually far closer to life. People are mad. We’re all over the place. That type of absurdity is actually far closer to reality.

Related Is HBO’s ‘The Regime’ Based on Any Real-Life Dictators? The HBO miniseries tells a fictionalized story that is somewhat rooted in truth.

This is a guy that clearly has a lot of pain inside him, and instead of having a way to deal with it, it seems to turn into rage. What was it like to have that inner violence and to figure out how much to show and let out, and when to have him contain it and hold it in?

SCHOENAERTS: The violence is a result of the pain that was inflicted on him. It comes from some injustice that, at least in his moral constitution, has been inflicted on him, so that justifies his actions towards himself. He’s not only violent, but he’s somebody that has been in the dark for too long, and the dark ate him up like a parasite, and he became the darkness. And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there’s this crack in the darkness that opens a possibility for redemption and finally gives meaning to his life and gives him a sense of mission and, hopefully, he is finally able to do something good in life. It comes from the most unexpected place. He’s given that position, and I truly believe that his moral and emotional intention is truly pure. He really wants to do good, and he’ll go for it.

‘The Regime’s Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts Collaborated on that Violent Moment
Image via HBO

There’s a moment when Kate Winslet’s character pushes your character so far that he grabs her by the neck. It’s difficult to watch because it feels so tense and he leaves red marks on her neck. What was that like to shoot? Did you have a lot of conversations about that before you shot it?

SCHOENAERTS: We were both excited because it’s a pivotal moment. It shifts their relationship into another gear and it inverses it again. We were excited about the narrative quality of that moment. And then, you shoot it from many angles, so it’s about not getting her truly hurt. But Kate was like, “Oh, go for it!” Of course, I went for it, but with elegance and gentleness and still not truly hurting her. You have to find a way to be explosive in a physical way, grabbing a neck without actually hurting somebody, and that’s not easy to do. In one of the first takes, I actually left red marks and makeup had to step in. I was like, “Oh, my God! Shit!” She felt that, and she saw that I was holding back or trying to find a way around it, and she was like, “Matthias, don’t worry. We’ve got makeup here. Don’t kill me but go for it.” She realized that stuff was happening in my head that was taking me out of the scene because I had this concern, and she was like, “No, no, just go.” And I was like, “I love this woman.” There are not many people that do that. And I was like, “Thank you.” I loved that.

Related ‘The Regime’s Kate Winslet Found the Road Map for Her Dictator Through Deep Daddy Issues Oscar winner Kate Winslet also talks about ‘The Regime’s twisted romance between two social misfits who never should have fallen in love.

For about half of this series, you wear a military uniform. How does that kind of wardrobe affect things? Do you hold yourself differently?

SCHOENAERTS: Oh, yeah. That speaks to the brilliance of Consolata Boyle. She doesn’t design costumes, she designs characters. That’s how I interpret it, because she’s so meticulous and so precise. When you put on what she gives you, and you look in the mirror, it instantly affects the way you hold yourself and the way you move. She does a lot of work for you, and that makes it easier for you because you don’t have to think about it anymore. You’re just right there.

The Regime airs on Sunday nights on HBO and is available to stream on Max. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Max