Kate Winslet makes her directorial debut on Netflix’s stunning British drama Goodbye June, which she also stars in. But when she signed on to direct the movie, she wasn’t always going to act in the movie too.
Originally, Winslet had agreed to star and produce the movie, written by her son Joe Anders. When it came to the decision to direct Goodbye June as well, her initial thought was that she “cannot do three jobs”.
“I know I’m good at multitasking, but this is too many things. I desperately tried to recast myself [and] had a really good list of a handful of people who would have been absolutely brilliant in that role,” Winslet told Digital Spy.
“But at that point… well, first of all, Netflix were like, ‘Uh-uh’ and secondly, I’d cast all these incredible actors. How could I not go and play with them? Because that’s what we do. We play, we pretend and it’s an amazing thing.
“You really form great connections with people and sometimes you’ll go to work and you’ll get along very well with the people you’re working with, and sometimes you form these heart connections that you know are going to be part of the rest of your life. We really had that on Goodbye June.
“I know it sounds a bit like sickly, but we had to really become a family in order to make it feel real as real as possible and as relatable as possible. You can’t just show up and do the job and go home again, it becomes something else. We were lucky on this film that that really happened.”
Netflix
Related: Netflix drama Goodbye June has the year’s best cast
It really shines through in Goodbye June, which sees Winslet play Julia, one of four siblings who come back together in the lead-up to Christmas when their mum June (Helen Mirren) is admitted to hospital when her health worsens.
In order to achieve the authenticity, Winslet chose to avoid using boom microphones on set and chose to sometimes lock the cameras and walk away as they were filming to allow the cast to act alone.
It was a decision that was praised by her fellow cast members Toni Collette and Andrea Riseborough.
“She just created such a relaxed environment and it was so freeing. We just felt so trusted, and we really did feel very connected and able to just try whatever,” Collette told Digital Spy.
Netflix
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Riseborough added: “There was no energy wasted and that’s really important when you have a very short time to make a film. Kate understands all of the mechanics of everything that she’s trying to achieve. She’s had 30-plus years absorbing all of that as a very brilliant person.
“You become ready to go in every way and our role really is to be emotionally ready, always ready to go when we can get it, especially with kids as well because you have to be respectful of how they’re feeling, sometimes they’re not up for it. Kate was so wonderful with them, she was a real inspiration to the kids.”
Goodbye June is out now in select UK cinemas and is released on Netflix on 24 December.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
