‘The Regime’ Is a Warning About Reelecting Trump (and It’s Also Supposed to Make You Laugh)

[This story contains spoilers from the first four episodes of The Regime.]

Across four episodes of HBO‘s The Regime, Kate Winslet has morphed into an evolving tyrant. Her Chancellor Elena Vernham, the populist leader of a fictional, unnamed country identified as being located in Middle Europe, was introduced to viewers as a vulnerable, paranoid and easily influenced ruler who was this close to unraveling. But by the end of the fourth installment in the six-part limited series from Succession writer Will Tracy, Elena has taken her power back — in more ways than one.

The “Midnight Feast” episode concludes with Elena reuniting with Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), the volatile soldier she had domesticated, elevated to be her right-hand man and then threw out to pasture. She exiled him from her inner sanctum because her imposter-syndrome demons — mainly related to her deceased tyrannical father, whom she regularly visits in the palace mausoleum — got the best of her, and she overcompensated by leading her country into an abrupt annexing of the neighboring (and also fictional) Faban Corridor.

Her dangerous political maneuverings give her new life as the once-erratic leader ultimately calls upon Zubak — after he enacts vengeance of his own by killing the country’s former leader (played by Hugh Grant) with his bare hands. When they lay eyes upon one another after months apart, Elena and Zubak embrace and proceed to have animalistic sex — as her own husband (played by Guillaume Gallienne) and wide-eyed staff are quickly ushered out of the room.

The scene would be shocking, if The Regime hadn’t already made its tone clear to viewers. When speaking to the series’ co-directors Stephen Frears and Jessica Hobbs, the helmers were clear about their goal: They want the audience to both laugh and be terrified.

“The intent of the show is that it’s dangerously funny,” Emmy-winning Hobbs (The Crown) told The Hollywood Reporter. “You should find yourself laughing and then questioning why you are laughing at something that makes you so uncomfortable, and that’s probably reflective of a lot of real-world situations, which is why we wanted to do it. I loved it. It terrified me. I didn’t quite know how to bring it to screen, and it turned out to be a very good thing.”

For double Oscar nominee Frears (The Queen), he echoes that both feelings can coexist, which is what drew him to the series upon reading the script. “I’m greedy. I want all those things,” he told THR. “The script was so unusual and intoxicating, and so challenging. The idea that you had to invent a country was wonderful. So I thought about the Marx Brothers, and I said yes.”

Tracy, writer and showrunner on the series, was inspired to make The Regime after years of voraciously reading about autocracies, authoritarian leaders and totalitarian states across all countries and time periods. So even though the series can seem eerily prescient at times, particularly with the annexation storyline playing out amid the ongoing war in Ukraine (which took place after pen was put to paper), setting the Winslet-led series in a fictional country was key to making it work. And it proved to be the biggest challenge for the helmers and the crew.

“We’re creating something that doesn’t exist, so you don’t have anything to fall back on. And you are very conscious that you don’t want it to be referencing anywhere in particular, so it actually makes your choices quite tough,” explained Hobbs.

The country waves a red and blue flag and its national emblem is constantly visible, but the name of the country — which Elena has now withdrawn from NATO — has been hidden so far. The show, which filmed in January 2023, was shot mainly in Vienna.

“You’re examining every costume, every design choice. ‘Where are we putting that? If we’re putting that there, then let’s try to get some of this area into that so it feels global,'” recalled Hobbs of the production process. “So you didn’t feel like we were being specific. It was important to us that it existed in and of itself.”

But, fictional or not, and prescient or not, there are still underlying messages to take away as viewers continue to watch Elena morph into a dictator of darkly comedic proportions.

One message, Frears puts quite simply: “Don’t vote for Trump.”

The Regime releasing in a U.S. election year is a result of the show being delayed due to the writers and actors strikes in 2023. And Frears says that has brought about the biggest real-life comparison that they couldn’t have predicted.

“The reality of Trump [and the presidency] has increased and grown stronger. He was more of a distant idea [when we began],” he said.

Hobbs added, “The great job of entertainment is, if you can make something dangerously funny that makes people uncomfortable to laugh at it, maybe they’ll think about the ridiculousness of some of the real world situations, and maybe that will make them think a little about what they could do. That would be a great thing.”

As The Regime continues with its final two episodes, Elena’s (Winslet) relationship with Zubak will also continue to evolve. When Winslet spoke to THR about returning to television with the role, the Oscar-winning actress talked about the care she put into her chancellor’s mannerisms and dictation, and how quickly she can turn her on and off. “The wigs were originally Kate’s idea,” said Hobbs. “She wanted something where the character could quickly reflect whatever she wanted to be presenting to her people or anyone around her, and such a good way to do it was through hair.”

Frears and Hobbs stressed how integral Winslet, who also executive produces the series, was both behind and in front of the camera. “There was never a second option,” said Frears. Hobbs added, “You cannot imagine someone else doing it.”

Winslet found her version of Elena by the time production began, so the directors got a taste of the character in their first read through. “She could switch her on and off easily. She’s very funny, too. When you’re talking to her at lunchtime and she’s still in character and telling you what she wants to eat, she could be very entertaining,” said Hobbs. “I would describe it like pure clowning. Clowns are the darker side of ourselves expressed through humor, and when you’re portraying someone like Elena, you can get away with an enormous amount. You can be unbelievably outrageous and still say those things, and I think that’s why she keeps appearing.”

The director says she and Winslet spoke at length about Elena’s narcissistic qualities, which will continue to emerge as the season barrels towards its conclusion, and that, no matter how over-the-top she may appear, there was truth in every scene.

“When you’re portraying a narcissist, they are often unbelievably charismatic and charming people. They need to be, in order to get people to do what they want, but they’re also brilliant disruptors,” said Hobbs. “Kate just understood for the character of Elena that, in any scene, whatever she said in that scene was true for her at that time. There wasn’t truth beforehand or after. That could change. It was a flexible thing. But she could be truthful in herself in that time. And I think that was a great kind of yard stick for her.”

And the scenes of Elena in the mausoleum with her dead father are when the actress brought that most to life, in moments where viewers can see the character and no one else can.

“They were her kind of confessional spaces, and they revealed a lot more of who she was,” she said. “Those scenes were tough for Kate. She did them really brilliantly, but they were challenging because they were digging deep into some darker stuff. But the truth is, with Kate, she brings it. She does it. You are there to help her if she needs it, but she doesn’t need a lot of help.”

The Regime is streaming on Max and releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO. Read THR‘s chat with Winslet on the series.