What’s the Deal With Kate Winslet’s Extreme Mold Paranoia in The Regime’s First Episode?
I n HBO's The Regime , Kate Winslet plays Elena Vernham, the charming if authoritarian leader of a small European country. Elena, the autocratic chancellor of her nation, is, by turn, charismatic, oblivious, and tyrannical—but above all, she is terrified of mold. Her mycophobia is so great that the first episode of the series, which premiered on March 3, opens with a haphazard renovation to the historical palace in which she lives, in an effort to banish any sign of possibly toxic spores. Throughout the episode, it's clear that the only thing that can threaten Elena's outsized ambition and undermine her power as a dictator is her paranoia about mold, which she keeps secret from the public. It's what leads her to hire Herbert Zubak (played by Matthias Schoenaerts), a disgraced soldier, as an aide whose sole purpose is to measure the humidity in a room ahead of her entrance, and to spend multiple hours a week in an oxygen tank, where she hides, Bubble Boy-style, from the ...


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