‘The Regime’: Who Is Elena Based On? Kate Winslet Reveals Inspiration

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Regime series premiere.]

With the Emmy-winning Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown under her belt, Kate Winslet has delivered memorable characters for HBO. She gives us her third and wackiest yet in The Regime, which debuted Sunday, March 3 in the network’s coveted 9/8c spot. The series has received mix reviews from critics, but all agree that Winslet’s performance is one to watch. Part of what makes it so watchable is just how downright weird the central tyrant, Chancellor Elena Vernham, is.

When the series, created by Succession and The Menu‘s Will Tracy, begins several years after Elena came into power. The addition of the violent and troubled Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts in a Rasputin-type role) sends the ridiculously paranoid autocrat into a romantic fling that could bring her regime toppling down (which likely would be a good thing for all but Elena and her few supporters). It’s a dark satire on the world today, and seeing Elena rule her unnamed country in Middle Europe may make you wonder if the character is intentionally based on a specific world leader.

With her cult of personality, plus some cultural influences from Middle and Eastern Europe, you might think the series pulled some personality traits from the likes of Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. Winslet tells TV Insider that she can’t “speak for the writers” in regards to who exactly the character is inspired by, but even just after one episode you can tell she’s an amalgamation of world leaders past and present.

Winslet speaks in her own British accent in The Regime, but there are some vocal quirks such as speaking out of the side of drooping left side of her mouth and a slight lisp. Her cadence and tone also give a hint of Margaret Thatcher. The result is a character unlike you’ve ever seen Winslet play before, and she knows it. Taking on the role was a daunting task for the Oscar and Emmy-winner.

“I had just never read anything like this in my life,” Winslet tells TV Insider. “I had never come across a character like this, and I just couldn’t compare her to anyone. And so I focused on the task at hand and the terrifying prospect of actually being the person who had to play her. And I knew it was a departure for me. I knew I had to come up with something that was just nothing like anything I’d ever done before. And so what I tried to do was to root her in a place that felt believable and real to me.”

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“Everything about her and who she is, this isn’t just like a momentary thing,” Winslet says of her extremely emotionally unstable character. “This is a woman with a really fragile, volatile, emotional and mental state. She has huge issues, and that has to come from somewhere. And in order for that to be something that people can either identify with or feel entertained by, I had to ground it in a place of reality. Otherwise, they may just have felt kind of a little bit like a voice or a thing or a funny or a gimmick, and I didn’t want to do that.”

Elena’s life before leadership helped paint the portrait of how this woman became so unhinged.

“I was able to really throw myself into her backstory,” Winslet explains, “which is clearly quite troubled, as you see by her relationship with her deceased father in a glass casket in the basement who she still goes and has conversations with and needs approval from. I mean, it’s utterly bizarre, ridiculous, absurd, delusional, and so quite honestly, I just dug right into playing someone who was unique and kind of unlikeable at times, and I actually had a great time doing that.”

Everyone in Elena’s sphere coddles her eccentricities so as not to upset the dictator (and to try and manipulate what they want out of her for their own gain), but the danger of Zubak is that he idolizes this woman and is fully invested in the success of her regime. Not because he believes in what she stands for, but because of his unshakable belief that she’s divinely suited to lead (and, thanks to some self-serving mind tricks from Elena, that they’re destined for each other). He’ll continue to validate Elena’s medical paranoias and more, and the series will ride on how Elena reacts to that validation.

The Regime, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO