Guy Pearce on Kate Winslet’s Neighbours obsession and sharing a house for Mare Of Easttown

Guy Pearce reveals how Oscar-winner Kate Winslet’s obsession with Neighbours led to a professional and personal bond — and why she just won’t let it go.

Guy Pearce and Kate Winslet had already proved they made excellent cast mates when they both won Emmys for their roles in the acclaimed 2011 drama, Mildred Pierce.

But in preparing for their acting reunion in Mare Of Easttown, they discovered they made excellent housemates as well, first quarantining together last year in upstate New York and then sharing a residence with Melbourne actor Angourie Rice in Pennsylvania, where the HBO drama was shot.

“They should have made a show about that,” says Pearce with a laugh over the phone from Bulgaria where he is shooting an action-thriller with Liam Neeson.

“It was brilliant. She loves being in the kitchen – not to suggest that women should be in the kitchen – but she is whipping up a storm like a crazy woman all the time, so I was completely her lackey in the kitchen, which was fine with me. And I keep a very tidy house, so the pair of us were great. She had me running around doing all sorts of things and I was very happy to do it.”

Guy Pearce and Guy Pearce in a scene from Mare Of Easttown.

British Oscar-winner Winslet happily admits to anyone who will listen that Mike Young, Pearce’s character on long-running Aussie soap Neighbours, was her childhood crush, and their experiences together have given truth the famous theme song that says “good neighbours become good friends”. She insisted to Mildred Pierce director Todd Haynes that Pearce be given the role of her lover – and he needed no convincing.

“I didn’t really know her before that but my agent said, ‘Look, Todd Haynes is doing a remake of a James M. Cain novel with Kate Winslet and HBO and they are just wondering …’ and I said, ‘Just say yes.’ He said, ‘I’ll send you the script, have a think …’ and I’m like, ‘Say yes, Todd Haynes, Kate Winslet and HBO, that’s a yes. What are we even talking about?’”

Having “fallen madly in love with other” while shooting the intense and intimate scenes on Mildred Pierce and remained buddies (“funnily enough I was just on the phone to her five minutes before speaking to you”), Winslet once again summoned Pearce to play author Richard Ryan, her romantic interest in the crime-thriller Mare Of Easttown, in which she shines as a small-town detective trying to solve the murder of a teenager.

Actors Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce first bonded in the acclaimed HBO drama Mildred Pierce.

“She calls me out of the blue and says ‘Darling, darling – you’re coming to do this – it’s a wonderful script and it’s only seven days’. So, she completely bosses me into things but I don’t even have to read it – I’m like, ‘I’m there darling, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it’. Why would you not?”

And more than 30 years later, she’s still obsessed with Mike from Neighbours, much to the amusement of Pearce and the bemusement of the American crew.

“It’s always weird and she still goes on about it – it just never stops. She f---ing sings the Neighbours theme on set. And of course, the American crew, they don’t know what Neighbours is so she will be standing in front of everyone saying, ‘You have to listen to this – I was madly in love with this boy when I was 11 years old’ and she explains the whole thing and everyone is looking at her like, ‘What are you talking about?’.

Kate Winslet, left and Guy Pearce with their Emmys for Mildred Pierce. Picture: AP Photo/Jae Hong

“She is hilarious about it and we will literally be in the middle of a scene and say ‘I can’t believe I am standing here with Mike’. She’s an Academy Award winning actress who has worked with everybody and still has these bizarre little Neighbours moments.”

Impressive as the ensemble cast of Mare Of Easttown is – it’s surely going to be part of the Emmy conversation this year – Pearce is loath to take too much of the credit.

JOSH DUHAMEL’S DARK SUPERHERO ROLE

WHY THE ROCK CHOSE QLD FOR HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TV SHOW

CLAUDIA KARVAN OPENS UP ON OUR FEAR OF DEATH

“It’s a funny one for me because she filmed for five months and I filmed for about seven days so it’s hard for me to even take any ownership of that show,” he says with a laugh. “I know they plonked me all over the place in the trailer and people keep saying ‘I love your and Kate’s new show’.

“It’s not really my new show per se. It’s a bit like when I did the Hurt Locker and everyone said ‘congratulations on the Academy Award’ and I’m like ‘ummmm … thanks. I don’t really feel like I had anything to do with it, but anyway’.”

Mare Of Easttown is now streaming on BINGE