The great DICTATOR

Kate Winslet plays a deluded despot who's losing her grip in a comedy drama

- SEAN MARLAND

Oscar-winning star Kate Winslet won Emmys for her powerful dramatic roles in the miniseries Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown. But for her latest project, The Regime, launching on Sky Atlantic and Sky Showcase this week, she steps into the world of political satire.

Winslet plays Chancellor Elena Vernham, the paranoid ruler of a modern-day dictatorship who lives in a bubble of opulence detached from reality, in the six-part series.

Vernham believes the people of her fictional Central European nation love her unconditionally, yet when she turns to a volatile soldier Herbert Zubak (Django’s Matthias Schoenaerts) as an unlikely confidant and the two become lovers, she soon finds her regime crumbling before her eyes.

‘It’s a twisted love story about two people who should never have fallen in love,’ says Winslet, 48. ‘But it’s also a geopolitical satire where, at times, nothing makes sense at all and things that happen are so absurd that all you can do is laugh your head off.’

Indeed, one of the opening scenes shows Vernham serenading a room full of sycophantic supporters at a closely stage-managed state event, before sitting down to discuss a trade deal.

‘This is a global leader singing Santa Baby as her Christmas message,’ continues the multiple BAFTA winner. ‘We decided to lean into the sheer lunacy of it!’