Kate Winslet’s New HBO Show Breaks Her Actor Reunion Streak After 13 Years

WARNING! This article contains spoilers for The Regime episode 2!

The new political satire show The Regime is Kate Winslet’s third miniseries with HBO, but it’s missing a key part of her past two outings. The Oscar-winning actress leads the cast of HBO’s The Regime as Chancellor Elena Vernham, the eccentric leader of an unnamed country in Middle Europe who sees her palace and power crumbling around her over the course of a year. Though the miniseries received mixed reviews, Kate Winslet’s performance has been singled out with plenty of praise from critics.

Before landing the lead role in The Regime, Kate Winslet starred in two of HBO’s greatest miniseries to date. Winslet played the titular role in Todd Haynes’ 2011 miniseries Mildred Pierce, a period drama based on the 1941 novel of the same name. A decade later, Kate Winslet was cast in the lead role of Mare Sheehan in HBO’s 2021 crime drama miniseries Mare of Easttown. Curiously, both TV shows saw Winslet star opposite the same actor as her character’s romantic interest, but The Regime breaks this trend.

The Regime Is Kate Winslet’s First HBO Miniseries Without Guy Pearce

Memento star Guy Pearce played significant roles in both Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown, but is missing from the cast of Kate Winslet’s 2024 HBO miniseries. Consequently, The Regime marks Winslet’s first HBO miniseries without Guy Pearce since 2011’s Mildred Pierce. In Mildred Pierce, Guy Pearce portrayed Monty Beragon, the husband of Winslet’s titular character. Pearce and Winslet then reunited a decade later in Mare of Easttown when he played Richard Ryan, a local author and writing professor who romantically pursues her character, Mare.

Related

Kate Winslet’s Mare Of Easttown Season 2 Update Is A Relief After Controversial HBO Show That 12.7M People Watched

Although Mare of Easttown’s season 2 update is worrying, a recent controversial crime series’ reception might be good news for Kate Winslet’s series.

Breaking an underrated streak for the pair after 13 years, Winslet’s romantic interest in The Regime is portrayed by another actor instead of Guy Pearce. After the first two episodes of The Regime, Winslet’s character Elena is married to Nicholas (Guillaume Gallienne) but shares complex chemistry with her staff member and advisor Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts). Though there’s no reunion with Guy Pearce to speak of so far in The Regime, the show still serves as a reunion for Winslet and Schoenaerts, who previously starred together in the 2014 movie A Little Chaos.

Guy Pearce Could Still Make A Cameo In The Regime’s Last Few Episodes

As a six-episode miniseries, there isn’t much time left to introduce a new character with enough screentime deserving of Guy Pearce. Though the show has still yet to introduce Hugh Grant’s The Regime character, Edward Keplinger, he has frequently been mentioned by figures on the show already. Still, it’s possible that Guy Pearce could make a surprise appearance sometime in the last four episodes of The Regime, thus ensuring that his HBO miniseries streak with Kate Winslet isn’t broken.

The Regime

The Regime is an HBO/Max mini-series that takes place over the course of one year and follows a failing dictator as her fictional empire begins to crumble around her. The show sees the beginning of the end of the dictatorship and the challenges that the Chancellor faces to keep her unsustainable rule afloat.

Release Date

March 3, 2024

Seasons

1

Writers

Will Tracy

Directors

Stephen Frears