NEED TO KNOW
Kate Winslet’s family talent continues to flourish.
The actress, 49, is making her feature-film directorial debut with Goodbye June, a holiday drama written by her son Joe Anders.
As an official logline teases, “It’s nearly Christmas when an unexpected turn in their mother’s health thrusts four adult siblings and their exasperating father into chaos as they navigate messy family dynamics in the face of potential loss.”
“But their quick-witted mother June orchestrates her decline on her own terms — with biting humor, blunt honesty and a lot of love,” the synopsis adds.
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Kimberley French / Netflix
Helen Mirren plays the titular June in the film, which will also star Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough and Timothy Spall.
Speaking with Deadline about the project, Winslet said that “it just feels great to have directed my first film in the 50th year of my life as a woman,” ahead of the Academy Award winner’s milestone birthday this October.
While she has never directed a feature before, Winslet told the outlet she has “been on enough film sets” throughout her decades-long career “to know what works and what doesn’t,” and has been influenced by filmmakers like Francis Lee, Todd Haynes and “a big, vast community of creatives who all chat and share things.”
“I think that’s something that I know that I can say, and I’ve been around enough actors to, I think, have some degree of instinct about what’s helpful and what’s not,” she explained.
Kimberley French / Netflix
Joe, 21, is Winslet’s middle child, whom she shares with ex-husband Sam Mendes. (She is also mom to actress daughter Mia Threapleton, 24, and son Bear, 11.)
The two worked closely on his screenplay for Goodbye June — so closely, in fact, that Winslet couldn’t imagine anyone else steering the ship.
“We felt good about thinking about going to either studios or networks, so we weren’t sure what we were going to do with it,” she said of their initial plans. But once they started talking about potential directors, Winslet told Deadline, she “suddenly felt like I’d been stabbed in the gut.”
The Titanic actress came clean to her son about it, telling him, “I don’t think I can let it go.’ I said, ’I don’t think I can give it away, Joe.’ And he said, ‘What do you mean?’ ” Winslet recalled. “I said that I want for us to really feel like we’ve done this. I want to direct it.”
“And then that was it,” she added to the outlet. “As I say, you just run at it with massive energy and bring everyone with you. And that’s what I did.”
Goodbye June is in select theaters Dec. 12, before streaming on Netflix Dec. 24.
