Kate Winslet makes her directorial debut with family Christmas movie Goodbye June
Dame Helen Mirren has a rule never to play someone with dementia or dying of cancer. She broke her rule for Kate Winslet after reading the script for Goodbye June. (Supplied: Netflix)
Kate Winslet is hoping you will spend Christmas with her. Well, that is, at least on screen.
While her 2006 whimsical comedy romance The Holiday, which co-starred Cameron Diaz, remains a seasonal favourite, Winslet's new family Christmas-themed film Goodbye June is a much more personal project. It's the Oscar-winning actor's directorial debut.
It's also a family affair, as her 21-year-old son, Joe Anders (along with ex-husband and director Sam Mendes) wrote the screenplay.
Directing wasn't initially on the agenda but Winslet was so touched by her son's novice script, she felt she had no choice.
Anders wrote it as an assignment for a screenwriting course, loosely based on the loss of his maternal grandmother to ovarian cancer in 2017 when he was 13.
"I was so overwhelmed by just how funny, real, touching and cathartic it was," Winslet says.
"I had a very strong emotional reaction to it. The scenario of an entire family coming together, whilst it's a fictional story, was very reminiscent of exactly what happened when my own mother passed away. I just felt I had to direct it."
A natural director
Winslet is in Los Angeles to screen and promote the film to press.
When we meet she's impeccably dressed in a black pants suit and crisp white blouse. She has a sweet but firm confidence. She seems to be relishing her new role as director.
Kate Winslet has worked with Hollywood heavyweights, but says the time for her to step into the role of director has not been right until now. (Supplied: Netflix)
"I got the film in on time and below budget. I hit all the marks," Winslet says, proudly.
Winslet has been directed by some of the best, including her first feature film in 1994, Peter Jackson's eerie Heavenly Creatures.
She has also worked with Ang Lee in his poetic take on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, James Cameron in her iconic role in Titanic, acclaimed Australian director Jocelyn Moorhouse for The Dressmaker, and British director Stephan Daldry for her Oscar-winning performance in The Reader.
"I'm a very technical actor and over the years I've had many directors tell me I think like a director; that I should start directing," she says.
"But I was raising a family and so there just simply wouldn't have been the space to be able to make that level of a commitment.
"But I am thrilled to now be in my 50th year and finally be able to direct."
On scoring Helen Mirren
Goodbye June is focused firmly on family and the memories, conflicts, joys and regrets that can either tear a family apart over the years, but can also bond them.
Helen Mirren plays the terminally ill matriarch, June.
Goodbye June features a stellar cast including Johnny Flynn and Helen Mirren. (Supplied: Netflix)
Timothy Spall is her stoic husband and their four children are played by Andrea Riseborough, Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn and Winslet.
The dysfunctional siblings, who have barely connected as adults, are forced to gather days before Christmas by the hospital bed of their still-feisty mother. With a mix of humour and heart they work through old wounds to unite as a family.
Casting Mirren in the role was quite a coup for Winslet.
"She told me she had two rules: to never play anyone who had dementia or anyone who's dying of cancer," Winslet explains.
"But she promised to read the script. She came back and said: 'I'll break my rule. I will do it for you'.
"I was really touched by her support."
The ties that bind
Winslet wanted to create a welcoming and warm filming experience for her seasoned actors.
"I've always dreamt of being able to rehearse in my own kitchen, so I could cook and feed everyone and have it feel like a family just by accident," she says. "And that was what we were able to do."
On set (much of it was filmed at Ravenscourt Park Hospital, a derelict 1920s hospital in London) Winslet took away any distractions including intruding boom mics to make the acting experience more intimate.
Kate WInslet said she wanted to give the cast space to lean into their characters rather than micromanaging them. (Supplied: Netflix)
"I wanted to offer them a working experience and on-set environment that was different," she said.
"When you are faced with the likes of Helen Mirren and Timothy Spall, it would have been ridiculous for me to have thought I could say something clever.
"I know myself when directors try and throw you by shocking you with a piece of direction they think you may never have heard before. The reality is we've heard it all before and actually we just want to be given the space."
But many times, Winslet found it difficult to hold back her tears.
"Those quiet conversations between my own mother and father in those final weeks of my mother's life, of course, I wasn't there for," she says. "So, watching this fictional family performing some of those very quiet scenes that happen in the final quarter of the story, I did find that very hard.
"I had to really just direct them very tenderly through my tears, as I sort of quietly hovered in the corner of the room.
"It mattered so much to make the most of this experience and to give the audiences a film that hopefully not only resonated with them, but created conversation and maybe offered them a space in which maybe they can have conversations with their loved ones, with whom we often have some of our most complicated relationships in our lifetimes."
Goodbye June is streaming on Netflix.