‘The Regime’ Creator Initially Wrote Kate Winslet’s Leader as a Man

[This story contains major spoilers from The Regime‘s finale.]

Will Tracy initially wrote the lead character of The Regime as a man. But then he used a writer’s trick: change one thing in the script and see what comes of it.

“It seemed to present a lot of interesting possibilities,” the series creator told The Hollywood Reporter of the seed that kicked off the story. “I don’t think I’ve really seen that before in American fiction about an autocracy, and it seemed really interesting that the character would be aware of that and she would use her status as a kind of weapon.”

What came of it was Kate Winslet inhabiting the role of the authoritarian leader in the Succession writer’s geopolitical dark comedy, which concluded its six-episode run on Sunday. Much like the entirety of the series, the ending was unpredictable: It was a victorious one.

Chancellor Elena Vernham (Winslet), when faced with the threat of losing her regime, sacrifices the man she loves, Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), in a desperate deal to reclaim her rulership. The limited series ends back in the Palace like how the show began, except that everything is different. Her husband Nicholas (Guillaume Gallienne) has returned to her side, but the once-vulnerable and erratic chancellor is now very much in control. She confidently gives a reelection address to an adoring country — from inside a bullet-proof glass cage — before visiting the dead body of Herbert, who has taken over a different kind of glass box, the one in the Palace mausoleum. But unlike in the scenes with her father’s dead body, there are no verbal insights into what Elena is thinking. Viewers are left to decipher her regretful yet self-aware looks before she exits, as Chicago’s “Baby Please Don’t Go” cues the series’ credits.

Now that viewers have seen the full arc of Elena Vernham’s reign in The Regime, Tracy (writer, executive producer and showrunner) takes THR back to his inspiration for a series that has become eerily relevant amid real-world events, while explaining his reasoning for the fictional country setting and why he envisions the show truly ending here.

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I read that the idea for The Regime was sparked by your obsession with reading about authoritarian governments. Can you elaborate on that being your comfort reading?

A humiliating hobby, yes. (Laughs.) I don’t know where it comes from. I’ve heard that, psychologically, the reason why people read books about Stalin and watch horrible documentaries about world atrocities is that they are in some ways trying to prepare themselves in case they find themselves in a similarly unstable political situation. And maybe that’s it. Maybe part of it is also a feeling of the comfort. I hate to even use the word. But if you have worries or anxieties in your life, but then you read a book about the Siege of Leningrad during the second World War, you start to feel, “Maybe my problems aren’t so bad. This bed is pretty comfortable, right?” But for, whatever reason, I am a very easy person to buy Christmas presents for. You can always buy me a book on Ceaușescu or North Korea, and I’ll be really happy.

Why did you decide to take the fiction route then, with such vast knowledge in your arsenal?

I could have done limited series on the reign of [Nicolae] Ceaușescu or the early yers of the civil war in Syria. But, maybe as an American, I didn’t feel as though I could be an authority on another country’s trauma. I also felt that it would be less fun to curate around the baggage or carry water for some country’s history, and it would be more surprising, and probably more fun, for me to create a country, but to situate that country within a larger geopolitical framework that, hopefully, feels real and feels responsive to what’s actually happening in the world. And maybe it was the influence of working on Succession. I knew that Jesse [Armstrong, creator] had originally tried to write a Murdoch film and a Murdoch series and then he thought, “Screw all that. I’ll take what I want from the Murdoch research,” but then he did so much research into the Redstones and Bancrofts and the Maxwells, and I think then eventually what you have to do, which is what I did, is you have to set the research aside a bit and just create your own thing. And I think that worked for Jesse, so I figured, why not give it a shot?

Your co-director Jessica Hobbs said the challenge with the show’s fictional setting was to make sure to not overtly evoke any real person or country. Was that also a challenge for you in the writing, or did you sprinkle things in for viewers to decipher?

There’s stuff in there if people want to look for it. But probably like Jess, I was quite nervous people would watch the show and think, “Oh, this is a thinly veiled allegory or analog of [name a regime].” That was worrisome to me. And then I’m equally worried, while in production and while I’m writing, when something happens in the news. Non-writers might assumre I would say, “Yes, what a gift!” when something happens in the news that is relevant to the show. I can say as a writer, speaking for probably most of the writers, it’s actually a feeling of dread. Because now you are feeling behind the wave, and that it was reactionary to this thing in the news.

And that would happen. Even with Ukraine. It feels like it’s been happening for five years now, but that happened well after the show was written. We had drafts of all the episodes and it was all broken in the room, and that to me was, “oh gosh.” There’s one episode where it feels as though the shadow of that might be a problem. We tried to go through with a fine tooth comb and make sure the story we were telling there was different. And I think we’re ultimately saved by the fact that we made this regime, this country and this leader, so politically and culturally and geographically specific that, hopefully, it won’t feel as though we’re too close to any real-world source.

When did you write this and when did you go into production?

I first came up with the idea maybe 2018 and then the scripts were written and we did the writers room and everything, we did a little miniroom. The scripts were done probably about three or four months before Ukraine started. And then things would continue to happen. Even the situation with Israel and Palestine or even what happened to [Alexei] Navalny.

I covered Veep and had many conversations with showrunner David Mandel about political storylines they unknowingly went on to predict.

And things would be harder for us on Succession, too. It’s harder when you are dealing with real America and the political climate changes so quickly as it did in 2016, or at least it felt quickly to most of us. It was very hard to make an on-the-pulse relevant show about American politics and culture and media when there’s such a dominant thing going on that you can’t really mention on the show. I felt quite lucky. Thank God I didn’t choose to do a fictionalized regime within a real country, because it would be really difficult.

Co-director Stephen Frears was blunt about what he hopes audiences take away from The Regime in a U.S. election year: “Don’t vote for Trump,” he said. Do you share that same message?

I thought it was going to be much more controversial (laughs). When I write, I don’t think about what someone might take away from it, in terms of what decisions they make as a voter, or try to influence anyone. This sounds like an evasive answer, but I just try to make an interesting story. And to me what makes the story interesting is that not only is it hopefully funny and engaging and has characters that people are interested in, but it maybe does have some resemblance to the world and maybe says something about the way the world works. But no, I don’t have a political takeaway about how to activate people against the possibility of authoritarianism either here or abroad. I do wish I had the answer for that. And, how great would that be if this show solved everything? (laughs)

I think that probably there are some things that Elena has in common with [former president Donald] Trump, moreso than with some other leaders, like even Putin perhaps. I think a defining characteristic of Elena — and what makes the comedy and the tragedy work hand in hand in the show — is a commonality I’ve seen a lot with authoritarians. That they not only desperately want to be heard and understood, but taken seriously: Don’t laugh at me. A lot of times, that stems from some of these authoritarian types having personalities that are so unusual when they first land. There’s something that’s kind of off, that sounds funny or looks funny, or is optically not the presentation of a leader that we’re used to. That’s part of what brings them to power and what makes them special. But they also carry around that insecurity; it never leaves them. “Oh, people used to laugh at me.” That insecurity is baked into them: “They never take me seriously; well, they’re going to take me seriously now.” That’s something I had in mind writing the show.

Kate Winslet, I understand, was the only person on the list to play Elena. Why did you go with a woman instead of a man?

In just writing a one sheet of what the world of the show might be, without thinking, I kind of stupidly or by default just made the character a man. And then when I went back and looked at it, I do what I sometimes do as a writer which is: Don’t think about it, just change something to something else and see what comes of it. And it seemed to present a lot of interesting possibilities.

First of all, I hadn’t seen that. Usually in American fiction about an autocracy, it tends to be the similar kind of version of a strong man brutalist-seeming guy. I felt, “boy that would be interesting if instead to do the optically quite appealing idea nowadays of a strong woman leader but, what if it’s a bit too strong and its authoritarian leaning?” I don’t think I’ve really seen that before and it seemed really interesting that the character would be aware of that, and she would use her status as a kind of weapon.

She knows that she can use that really effectively, right? But she can also use it effectively with her own people. She kind of thinks of herself as a mother, even though she’s not, and she sort of has what she presents as this maternal energy. But then also to the West and to people she’s trying to court their investment and validation and affirmation, she knows how to be that strong woman leader in that part of the world. Let’s ignore the fact that she’s actually quite repressive and focus on the optics of strong woman leader, and she know she’s going to get away with some of the stuff that the guys aren’t. That presented all new sorts of story opportunities that you wouldn’t get otherwise.

Now that it’s over, do you truly view this series as being done with six episodes?

I do. I think in terms of stories that you could tell about this subject matter, about the life of a regime told in miniature, we hit a lot of points in the life cycle of this type of regime and I’m not sure what else we could do. I definitely wrote it to end at six. This is not an, “Alright, I wrote six and maybe if it ends well, they will let me do more.” I really did try to do it as an ending. But, never say never. Look, I can be talked into all kinds of things.

The Regime is now streaming on Max.