Kate Winslet To Play A Detective In HBO Drama Series 'Mare Of Easttown'
The last time Kate Winslet starred in an HBO show, she won an Emmy for her stellar performance in Mildred Pierce, a remake of the classic film noir movie from 1945. Now she's heading back to the premium channel for a new limited drama series called Mare of Easttown, which is the brainchild of Out of the Furnace writer Brad Ingelsby. Get plenty of details about the new show below.
According to Deadline, Winslet will star as "a small-town Pennsylvania detective who investigates a local murder at a time when her own life is crumbling around her." The Oscar-winning actress continues to be one of the best in the business – she's always memorable, even in so-so movies like 2016's Triple 9 – so the prospect of her heading back to television with a juicy role like this is incredibly appealing to me. Kate Winslet as a small-town detective? I'll take 100 episodes, please.
In addition to writing the backwoods character drama Out of the Furnace, Ingelsby also wrote the Liam Neeson action thriller Run All Night. He's the creator and showrunner of Mare of Easttown, and he'll write every episode.
Gavin O'Connor, who's directed films like Miracle, The Accountant, Jane Got a Gun, Pride and Glory, and Warrior (one of the best sports dramas of all time), will direct every episode. HBO has paired a single writer with a single director for its dramas before, most notably in season one of True Detective (with Nic Pizzolatto and Cary Fukunaga) and season one of Big Little Lies (David E. Kelley and Jean-Marc Vallee), so hopefully this collaboration results in something just as memorable. O'Connor and Ingelsby apparently have a solid working relationship – they're also pairing for an upcoming movie called Torrance, which stars Ben Affleck as a widowed former basketball all-star who becomes the coach of his old high school's team.
Elsewhere, O'Connor is working on a reboot of The Green Hornet, a sequel to The Accountant, and is directing at least one episode of City on a Hill, a Showtime original drama executive produced by Affleck and starring Kevin Bacon. Winslet is reuniting with James Cameron for the Avatar sequels, co-starring with Saoirse Ronan in Ammonite, and voicing characters in a pair of animated movies called Manou the Swift and Naya Legend of the Golden Dolphin (yeah, I've never heard of those either).