'Mare of Easttown': Kate Winslet Talks Crafting the Emotional Bar Scene with Evan Peters

in his shot glass that he drinks on camera there was apple cider vinegar which made him have that [Music] that reaction and that's a very smart idea i've never come up with that myself that's a good one i'm definitely going to steal that for sure since memory can only take you so far and i find that um when you take a shot of water it's like immediately you take the shot of water and you're like i'm in a scene so so it really helps to to sort of give you a little bit of something to to feel that burn and and to um you know ignite you and and kind of kind of keep you going [Music] hi i'm kate winslet and this is variety's making a scene i was executive producer and played the lead role of mayor in mayor of east town i'm evan peters i play detective collins able brad ingles be here the writer and craig zobel uh director of mayor of east town and we are here to talk about the scene in the bar with mayor and a very drunk zabel well how do you do their partner how are you hey what are you doing here hey drinking keith cunningham the production designer had found this very interesting bar that i was pretty excited about um that had kind of a unique shape to it and it it allowed for us to put cameras very far away but on on kind of long lenses which i felt would help at least for the beginning of the scene when it's just mayor by herself to sort of isolate her as kind of the person not moving in this like big space that's like filled with you know people kind of having a different night than she is it was quite a crowded space i remember that and it's it was in a real bar that i have to be honest like it smelled like 10 bars in one so it was quite an uncomfortable set to be on um it was very dark it was the middle of the day so we'd step outside and it would be 11 in the morning and it's that awful moment of oh my god brightly and so this scene is so important because it's the first time we see a deeper side of his able where he opens up in a way outside of just details of the case procedural elements and conversations he has with mayor about the case itself get her a 15-year high score unit over tonight because it's uh really high readers class of 05. what are you doing what about you what's going on i'm just trying to drink away a bad thought zabel was scripted as being much more confident and flirtatious with mayor and actually evan was he was just brilliant he said this doesn't fit it doesn't feel it doesn't feel right i don't think zabal has enough confidence to really you know put himself out there and kind of woo this woman it started out with a kiss song playing and i was singing along tonight with my friends and shooting pool and i do this like amazing trick shot and like i was you know working with a pool professional and and trying to learn all these shots and then and then craig was just like i don't know if we should i was like it doesn't really match our guy the wheels have come off he's he's had way too much to drink can't control himself is loose of tongue and talks about his past in this very fragile vulnerable way it's pretty awful my ex was there almost ex-wife she called on two weeks before the wedding evan's performance we very quickly were i very quickly saw like this is what it's really like being drunk and sort of lost that i think we've all had in our life at one point or another somehow he knew exactly kind of like how to ring that bell you know over and over again in a movie set in a way that i was just really impressed with his skill as an actor i woke up one morning and she goes nope not in love with you anymore okay it was really an opportunity to show to show that there was something off about this guy you know he didn't have everything together he was he was a little bit um floundering and and drinking to sort of uh block some stuff out you know and and to me it was you know this whole arc is about living with this lie after reunion after disappointment it's returning to him and i think that's i think that i i i would say in in my experience is pretty normal you know it's not every moment of every day you're haunted by the lie but in certain moments and quiet moments alone moments it comes back to you am i making any [ __ ] sense i always imagined i'd be a cop so life around me i didn't expect to fall apart so spectacularly mayor made the shot but where she's been an imposter is by trying to put up a front in the community of having it all together and and we drop into her life at this exact moment where she's not able to she's not able to continue that anymore you know the illusion is is is evaporating and it's because her son died she's divorced and now you know the community that embraced her as a as a kid really is turning on her over katie's case and now it's compounded by aaron's case mayor's story um is so completely different to what's going on for zabel you know she's sitting there with two bags of heroin burning a hole in her pocket and trying to get that balance right between slightly wanting the audience to think maybe is she gonna actually take the drugs herself finding that balance and playing completely level not giving too much away yeah there was a lot to juggle in that scene why you were a good mother no no i wasn't committing to playing a character who doesn't get things right all the time and who can sometimes be completely diabolical in terms of how she behaves you know it's a step it's a step you take you have to somehow make the character real enough and redeemable enough and relatable enough that the audience will forgive her hopefully i don't know if i want to go back with them i think he'd rather stay here with you i think it just comes out of him and and and in the show you know the scene when the way that kate looks at me i mean it just like it just hit me i mean she's just beautiful in the way that she looks is it it was really really something to to see her to look back at me like that mayor was just the key of this whole thing that she was powerful and almost amused in a way to to to get him out of his funk to be a better detective a better person move out of your mom's house there's been that annoying drunk person herself multiple times in her life it's just like you know meh there's nothing she hasn't done and there's nothing she hasn't seen so it just doesn't face her and i loved that about the way that scene was scripted evan was able to i mean obviously he's incredible in the scene but just some of the lines he came up with on his own the bagel line was evan's line which i think is one of the most memorable lines in the series really where you know we had written in the script i woke up one morning and she said nope not in love with you but then evan added wait what let me put my bagel down it added that detail that took it from being it's a pretty it's a decent line into something really memorable even in the most tragic messed up crazy moments there's at least you know something funny will happen some all fired or someone will drop something you know you just you can't help but continue to laugh and try to get through it and and maintain some sort of semblance of uh you know normalcy god love evan he was so nervous i think he was so in his character and and so kind of like in the moment that i i don't think he was able to be metering that on his own and um and so you know he came to me and was like hugging me afterwards being like i don't think i got it i i think i you know i think i we missed it and i was like trust me we we got it it works he's like no i think we got it and i'm like i gotta shadow you man i'm terrible i suck i don't know what's going on here i can't do it and i think looking back at it now it was really me tapping into this feeling of of all these missed opportunities you know failing of missing the mark of oh i didn't get it and there was an opportunity and and this was such a i mean i'm working with kate winslow i was like oh my god like this is such a huge opportunity and i want to i want to do this right and i just kept saying to him just stop all that it's you're doing it just keep [ __ ] doing it go on go back do it again oh god okay okay i was just so happy that i was like encouraging him and sort of became the role of like nurturing and being like we can do this you're you know i was the i was the first base coach where kate you know partly just because she's kaiden she's amazing and is like so supportive of all of her scene partners because she was being mayor talking to zabel she sort of took the like harder role and being like come on now toughen up we can just do this just let's just do another take you could beat nothing on yourself and he was nailing it take after take and it wasn't just that he was nailing it he was bringing something new and nuanced and different and he was experimenting and and and he just kept going you i suck i suck right you say i mean i definitely suck and it was quite hard for me because i wanted to just throw my arms around him and you know tell him how much i loved him and how how how brilliant he was being but i didn't want him to give up because he was giving such gold every time it was funny it was both like amazing to kind of see the dynamic of their characters playing out like out outside of the you know when the cameras were rolling um and just sort of like how we were all having i think having so much fun making the scene craig is one of my favorite directors i have ever worked with he he lets you do your thing at first and sort of get your footing first couple takes are kind of yours you can go after what you're trying to do put that on film and then he'll walk up to you and be like i really like that thing that you were doing i go let's go more into that area let's like try to do that or he's like he's like he's like i do this thing sometimes and it's like i wonder if we could play around with that and so he'll give you things to play around with and and and sometimes it's amazing and sometimes it's the key and unlocks everything and it just opens it all up and you can go in that direction and then sometimes he'll be like yeah i didn't like that i was wrong i was wrong let's go the other way evan is a very very fine detailed actor and there's nothing he couldn't do honestly you know kate is really really detail-oriented and does these amazing little things that bring so much life and so much realness to it i mean you know in real life everything is not perfect there's things that are so messed up and details and you know the laptop's dirty or her phone is broken you know it's like these amazing little things that bring such a reality to it so i think kate had a lot to do with that too the level of artistry and mastery that she brings to all of her roles is uh something that i think everybody got on set and was just like okay we gotta we gotta bring it kate and evan they could always take what was written on the page and make it ten times better and this scene in particular in evan's case um and kate had many many examples of making a scene way way better than it was on the page but in this case evan was able to tap into the scene and add just you know just so much nuance and heartbreak you know one of the great line readings i think is when he's kind of laughing and then he's talking about hey i think about but you know the gap between my life i imagined it was and what it is and he almost starts crying and then he like slowly reigns it in but like it's just incredible that he was able to go through that in a couple minutes and that's the great joy of working with actors you know like you can go as deep and they can just make a scene way better than it actually is [Music] this [Music] you

Channel: Variety

Views: 72,778

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, making a scene, variety making a scene, mare of easttown bar scene, kate winslet, evan peters, craig zobel, brad ingelsby, mare of easttown kate winslet, kate winslet bar scene

Id: 34zBRqAX2po

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021