Actress Kate Winslet teams up with son for her directorial debut Goodbye June
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Screenwriter-actor Joe Anders with his mother, actress Kate Winslet, at the premiere of their film Goodbye June in London on Dec 3.
PHOTO: AFP
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LONDON – Oscar winner Kate Winslet makes her directorial debut with Goodbye June, a holiday season-set drama about a family faced with loss coming together.
The English actress, who also stars in the film, directs from a screenplay by her 21-year-old son Joe Anders. The story was partly inspired by their personal experience of losing Winslet’s mother and Anders’ grandmother to cancer in 2017.
“I just wanted to make a film that felt authentic and real,” said Winslet, 50, premiering the movie with Anders and the cast in London on Dec 3. It debuts on Netflix on Dec 24.
“I also didn’t want to make a story that was about someone who dies because it’s really not. It’s actually about the life that is given to the people who are left behind.”
She said she wanted to set the movie in Britain’s National Health Service space because it is “massively undervalued”.
“And we need to give credit and honour the people who do that incredible work, especially our palliative care workers,” she said.
“It’s entirely fictional,” added Anders. “I think it just emotionally came from that place of sending my grandmother off.”
Kate Winslet (right) directing on the set of Goodbye June.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
Anders, whose father is Oscar-winning English film-maker Sam Mendes and Winslet’s former husband, wrote the script when he was 19, and showed it to her for feedback.
“I didn’t even know if I could write a screenplay. I just wanted to give it my best shot. And the fact that it’s been made into a movie is insane,” Anders said.
Winslet said of her son’s work: “I was so impressed by it and loved the dialogue – it was just phenomenal.
“And so when it came to the point that the script was ready to send out to directors, I just realised that there was no way we could possibly let it go.”
Screenwriter-actor Joe Anders and his mother, actress Kate Winslet, at the premiere of Goodbye June in London on Dec 3.
PHOTO: AFP
Winslet said she had thought about stepping behind the camera over the years, but raising a family kept her busy. She also has a 25-year-old daughter, actress Mia Threapleton, from her first marriage to English director Jim Threapleton; and a 12-year-old son with her current husband Edward Abel Smith, an English businessman.
“There just wouldn’t have been that space in my life, I think, emotionally and just energetically. I couldn’t possibly have added anything else into the juggle of it all. But this felt like the right moment, and I felt really ready to do it,” she said.
In the film, family matriarch June (Helen Mirren) is hospitalised shortly before Christmas. Her husband (Timothy Spall), son (Johnny Flynn) and three daughters, played by Winslet, Andrea Riseborough and Toni Collette, and their offspring rush to her bedside, bringing with them conflict and personal struggles, but also joy and care.
Helen Mirren (left) and Kate Winslet in Goodbye June.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
“It’s such an honest look at the transition from life into the next. And it’s about family, the mess and the beauty of the dysfunctional family system,” said Australian actress Collette, 53.
Winslet said she was “so proud” of herself for directing her first film and would “love to do more” as she found the experience “incredibly rewarding”.
“I loved being with those actors, I loved being with the children, and also the collaboration with the crew, because it all has to work together. You all have to be a team, and it’s something that really just lifted me up.” REUTERS/AFP
Goodbye June premieres on Netflix on Dec 24.
