Craig Zobel Talks Working With Kate Winslet & Leaning Into The Brightening Humor Of ‘Mare Of Easttown’ [Interview]

A versatile filmmaker, who has moved from the world of celebrated Sundance moral dilemma indies like “Compliance” and “Z for Zachariah” into mainstream films, director Craig Zobel has shown an aptitude for shaping his filmmaking style towards the material. 2020‘s “The Hunt” was a big provocative satirical thriller, and it went for broke, but in his TV work (“The Leftovers,” “Westworld”), he really showed an affinity for balancing genre with the emotional human element.

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As the director of HBO’s “Mare Of Easttown,” Zobel has taken that idea to the next level, creating the look and feel of a riveting crime drama—the show is part murder mystery—but also creating plenty of space for soulful human drama (with humor!) can exist without stepping on the toes of either narrative element.

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“Mare Of Easttown” centers on Mare Sheehan (a terrific Kate Winslet), who investigates a local murder, while her life is falling apart. So while, yes, there’s a policing and murder element to the series, which is taut, dark, and intriguing, it’s mixed with a very humanist story about how family and past tragedies can define our present and how we try and break out of our ruts.

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We spoke to Zobel about directing ‘Mare’—subtle, nuanced work which is arguably the finest of his career—a few weeks before the series came to an end.

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I love this series, and I love your work on it; I’d argue it’s your finest. Tell me about becoming part of this world.
Well, I’m excited to hear that.  Well, as you probably know, Gavin O’Connor [“The Way Back”] started as the director of this project, and then he had to leave for personal reasons. I had just finished “The Hunt,” which was fun but exhausting in a certain way.

And HBO reached out to me and was, “Hey, would you be down to do this?” So, I had the privilege of coming in and talking to Kate and understanding what she was excited about the project, what she saw in it, and that really gave me an unexpected perspective. And that was awesome in the sense that it was different than what was on the page, in my mind. It was all already fully realized in her head.

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She saw this person, this character that I don’t know that I would have seen if I didn’t talk to her first. So, it was, “Oh, that’s interesting. Let’s chase that.” Let’s try to tell a story about that person I hadn’t seen on television in a while. It was a combination of, and I’m a fan of, all of the HBO mysteries, but this felt different. Yes, it was satisfying as a murder mystery, but it was also a very naturalistic drama which was exciting. Having just come out of a film that was very unnatural, intentionally, it was exciting to imagine me doing something that was really rooted in a place and character.

So dig into that a little bit more if you can,  the way Kate helped you see a show and character that wasn’t on the page, and or opening your mind to what it could be?
Sure, look, the series is a murder mystery, for sure, a detective, procedural detective show. But it’s really a character study of this one woman. I think what Kate innately saw as a challenge and an interesting, fun thing was making the strong a confident woman with complexity. She knows who she is. She knows who she isn’t, all that, but Kate was able to see a particular thing and bring the experience of being a 45-year-old woman to this character who used to be a basketball star and layer it. You know, the town knows her from a previous life, a previous heyday that is no longer part of who she is.

So Kate honed in on— what does that do to a person? What kind of person does that turn you into? And I found it quite funny actually. I found what she was doing quite funny, and I really encouraged that because I actually really liked watching her be grumpy with people, and this is what makes the story really engaging to me—which was encouraging her bad behavior, really.

I love how the show seemed to swing, almost veer sometimes away from a murder mystery into just human drama, which was funny, as you say, but then swing back when you almost forgot about the crime story and then back and forth like this pendulum between two genres and yet never losing its feeling or tone.
It was a little like, “what’s enough murder mystery to keep the viewer hooked?” but not solely focus on that.  It was balanced, which is why it was useful to direct the project myself. There is some level of feeling confident that you’re scratching the itch of murder mystery and getting away with a little more character depth. Look, I really feel like audiences all actually really love watching human and dramas, but that’s not an easy sell necessarily. That’s a bit of a challenge getting an audience to what just, but the beauty was she created a fascinating character, so dynamic, so multi-faceted that I wanted her to solve the case. Still, I also wanted to see her order dinner and deal with her daughter [laughs]. I want to stick around to see her life.

Doing all the episodes gave me the confidence to realize, we had bought enough goodwill with the murder that we could also hang out with the family. We also knew we’d be fulfilling those mystery elements by the end too, so there was room to play.

To me, “Mare Of Easttown” and mini-series are in this enriching sweet spot where they tell a crime story that you might see in a movie but have the width and depth of TV character storytelling. It’s kind of like a novel, but not a serialized one, nor does it overstay its welcome as some TV does. It’s a long-form movie almost.
It’s an interesting time. I’m certainly not the first person to be like, “Oh, TV is much more like a novel.” I know that’s been said 400 times, but the format is changing because so many are watching it. As a filmmaker, the job changes too because you’re plotting out beats for episode three that connect to episode five, and in a movie, you wouldn’t have that problem. And among syndicated TV shows or something, you’re not operating within that rule book either. It’s becoming this new thing.

Kate is so outstanding in this. Tell me about working with her and helping bring this character to life on screen.
I think about Mare a lot as a person—because of the early events of her life of being a basketball star in high school—who has had to compartmentalize everything. Once we learn that she’s lost her son and had to compartmentalize that, I found that interesting because it’s something that all people do on some level or another, but you usually don’t have room to delve into it.

In a shorter piece, you’d never get to see the character spend time coming to realize they need to examine some of their past and their past grief; even that realization is important. I’m a big proponent of therapy and mental health, and there were times like I felt like Mare or even Kate wouldn’t want to do that. So, I really loved that the story took a character that would normally be totally resistant to therapy and then actually has that helps them out through the course of it.

I love how you guys made her so grumpy, varnished, and bitter—and unapologetically so—and yet, she’s still so funny and empathetic.
I would constantly watch her and say, “You made me laugh; we should go further in that direction.”Also, otherwise, it’s very heavy. Cause it can be exhausting to watch a lot of dark character stuff.  And sometimes that was inappropriate—we all knew when we couldn’t be funny— but if there was something remotely humorous, we tried to lean into that just by virtue of this is what is keeping us all smiling on set, and it also worked within the greater story which was exciting.

“Mare Of Easttown” is airing on HBO now, and the finale airs Sunday, May 30.