Actor Kate Winslet has shared the deeply personal toll of her latest project, Goodbye June, admitting that directing and starring in the film felt like “reliving” the death of her own mother.
The movie, set before Christmas, sees four adult siblings and their father unite as their mother’s health declines.
Dame Helen Mirren portrays June, while Winslet portrays one of her daughters, Julia.
The cast also features Australia’s Toni Collette, musician Johnny Flynn, Oblivion star Andrea Riseborough, and Bafta TV award-winner Timothy Spall.
Winslet told Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast that her own mother’s death in 2017 “still feels like yesterday”.
She said she tried to “keep that private experience separate” to playing Julia, but was not successful.
“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,” she said.
“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.”
Winslet said Max was “a great spirit to sort of sidle up to in those moments” when she was feeling vulnerable.
“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,” she added.
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“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 UK cinemas on 12 December and on Netflix on Christmas Eve.
