Edward Keplinger, we hardly knew ye. On the fourth episode of The Regime, “Midnight Feast,” Hugh Grant finally appears as the former chancellor, who resides in a prison underneath the palace. Yet Grant’s stay on The Regime was surprisingly short-lived. After befriending newly imprisoned Herbert Zuback (Matthias Schoenaerts), the Butcher murders Keplinger in a fit of rage—getting back into Chancellor Elena’s good graces as she continues to lose her grip on her country. Grant stops by a new episode of Still Watching to discuss his short but impactful stint on The Regime, reuniting with Kate Winslet after almost three decades, and dying on camera for the first time.
It surprised even Grant when he realized that over the course of his four-decade career, he’d never perished on camera before The Regime. “I had no idea how to do it,” Grant told Still Watching hosts Hillary Busis and Chris Murphy. Though the scene is gripping, the famously curmudgeonly actor was less convinced by his own performance. “I said, Stephen [Frears, the show’s director], I think I’m going to be shit. He said, ‘No, no, it’s wonderful.’ But I think it was shit, because I’ve noticed they put in an extra shot of someone’s hand. And it’s not even mine.”
Hand-double or no, Grant had a pleasant time shooting The Regime, particularly reuniting with Winslet 29 years after they costarred in Sense and Sensibility. “She had done Heavenly Creatures, but she was new enough for Ang Lee to say things to her,” Grant said. “He’s a lovely man, as you may know. But partly because of the language barrier, he came across as quite blunt. He said to Kate at the end of her first week, ‘You will get better.’” Grant also recalled Lee giving some tough constructive criticism to himself and costar Emma Thompson. “He also said to me and Emma Thompson after our first scene, ‘Very boring.’ So, he was quite blunt.”
Grant imagined that Keplinger and Elena had a complicated past together, perhaps even actual love lost between the two. “I always had as a back story that he’d probably had an affair with Elena years ago, at university or something, but that maybe he hasn’t been a great success in bed,” says Grant. “I think that Keplinger might be a bit lapsang souchong between the sheets, and was a bit jealous of Zubak, who probably isn’t.”
As for whether Keplinger was a better chancellor than Elena, Grant remains unconvinced. “I think he was stale buns,” said Grant. “I think he’d had his go at chancellor and there was probably about five minutes when the people thought he was the bee’s knees. And then I think they thought, ‘Uh, he’s a bit of a wanker, really. He’s not really one of us. He’s university educated and part of the liberal elite.’” The actor doesn’t necessarily disagree with this assessment either. “He’s a bit snobby and he kind of despises the uneducated, especially when they go populist and, and, you know, vote for an Elena or some bullshitter like that.”
Are Elena and Zuback officially back on? Has Chancellor Elena fully lost control of her regime? Only two episodes remain in this season of The Regime. As always, send any questions, comments, or thoughts about the series to Still Watching at [email protected].
Chris Murphy
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