Kate Winslet on recruiting Julianne Nicholson to Mare of Easttown: "I just kept begging her to say YES"

The Boston Globe

Winslet says as executive producer on the HBO drama, she had the opportunity to cast an actress she had long admired to play Lori, her character’s best friend. “I just felt that the qualities she possesses as a woman, as a mother, and as an actress combined meant that it would be a serious win if she would consider playing Lori Ross,” Winslet tells the Boston Globe via e-mail. “I just kept begging her to say YES.” Nicholson admits she didn't initially accept the role, even after reading the scripts for the first six episodes. “I was probably looking for a chunkier role, sizewise,” she says. But then came the call from Winslet and the script of the seventh episode — ”it all comes together,” Nicholson says, this “show about friendship and motherhood and grief” — and she was in.