hen the HBO original series Mare Of Easttown debuted in April this year, the network had clinched another addictive hit that resonated with viewers worldwide. The seven-part limited series, written by Brad Ingelsby and directed by Craig Zobel, stars Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan, a small-town Pennsylvania detective whose life crumbles around her as she investigates a local murder while dealing with her own grief of losing a son.

Its last episode aired on May 30 and was watched by 4 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max, setting several records for the pay-cabler and its streaming service. The finale episode set a record as the most-watched episode of an HBO original on HBO Max during its first 24 hours of availability. Mare Of Easttown also joined The Undoing as the only series in HBO history to see consecutive growth week-to-week.

To boot, the HBO and wiip co-production scored 16 Primetime Emmy nominations, with four wins including Winslet for Lead Actress in a Limited Series, Evan Peters for Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his role as Detective Colin Zabel, Julianne Nicholson for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series and Outstanding Production Design for A Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour or More).

But these rare television gems are, of course, no overnight success. For Ingelsby, Mare of Easttown was the culmination of a long desire to return to his home state of Pennsylvania while also delving into a deep character study of the strength and struggles of small-town life.

“I wanted to write about home and how I grew up and the people I grew up with and the kind of rhythms of life there,” says Ingelsby, who hails from Berwyn, Pennsylvania. “That was a desire I’d had for a long time. I’ve come close to shooting some things back in the area, but it hadn’t worked out. I also wanted to tell a story about this character Mare, who I had had in my head for a long time and was someone I was really passionate about and had grown to love as a character.”



Ingelsby has long been attracted to writing stories about working class sensibilities and flawed characters throughout his film career ranging from films The Way Back and Out Of The Furnace, but telling the story through seven hour-long episodes enabled him to go deeper into themes of grief, generational trauma, healing forgiveness, mercy, family and community through the eyes of a female private detective against the backdrop of a murder mystery.

“It had to be entertaining and, in a way, it felt kind of obvious that Mare would be detective who would have to solve a murder case,” says Ingelsby of creating the tension in the story arc.

As he developed Mare, Ingelsby crafted an unglorified story around her, layering it with his own details and memories of growing up in a small-town Pennsylvania. The Catholic Church sports and athletes, things that tend to go hand in hand with a blue-collar environment, were peppered throughout the tale. Mare, for example, is a former basketball player who scored a winning shot in a game 25 years ago in school and this legacy follows her around everywhere she goes, proving to be a moment of excellence it feels like she may never top.

“I didn’t grow up with a murder investigation, but I grew up with lots of priests in the Catholic Church, I grew up in places and inside homes like these and with characters like these,” he says.

From that base, Ingelsby began constructing the connective parts around her, building out her family, friends and tight-knit community.

“I grew up around a lot of women,” says Ingelsby. “Specifically, my mom and her three sisters plus I had two sisters. A lot of my childhood was spent hanging around these women. I had a stutter as a kid so I didn’t like to talk all that much. I just liked to listen to their conversations, and I think I was a good listener. Listening to how these women talk and the relationships they had and the way they took care of each other and support each other was something I got to witness a lot.”

Ingelsby, who also served as showrunner and exec producer on the project, took the story to wiip’s Mark Roybal, who “devoured the script” in one sitting. Roybal, who had worked with Ingelsby on many feature films, had been eager to work with him on a television show and swiftly boarded the project as an exec producer.

Esteemed casting director Avy Kaufman was brought aboard to find the actors who could carry these layered characters and for her, the entire process was a “delight.”

“When you work with a team that you know you have the same language as, it just makes everything much clearer,” says Kaufman. “We started with the writing and just looked at who could deliver these lines honestly, whether they were from Australia or England or wherever. You’re mixing and matching.”



Just 48 hours after reading the first script, Winslet signed on to play Mare and, in a first for the actor, she also boarded the series as an exec producer.

“I thought it was absolutely spectacular,” recalls Winslet of her first read. “The way Brad so brilliantly wove spectacular cliffhangers into every single episode was just glorious.”

These cliffhangers do a wonderful job in bringing the audience back for more each week as viewers continue to guess who the real culprit of Easttown may be. But it’s also the rich tapestry of characters on offer that play a part in luring viewers back for more. With each episode, audiences are given an intimate portrait of real and relatable characters coupled with all of the clever twists and turns that are in keeping with classic murder mysteries.

It’s this intricate balance between character study and small-town murder mystery that ultimately drew director Zobel to the project.

“The genre part of [the story] was a way to be able to give enough space to do a portrait of a town and talk about a bunch of characters,” he says. “Essentially, we were allowed to do a family drama that I think, by itself wouldn’t have been as exciting as if it didn’t have the genre elements. It was really about trying to balance both of those things.”

When it came to constructing the overall aesthetic for Mare Of Easttown, Ingelsby reunited with The Way Back production designer Keith P. Cunningham. They opted to build on that same blue-collar vernacular when it came to creating Mare’s world.

“With a character like Mare, Brad had added so many dense details from his childhood and the fact we got to shoot where he had written it was an amazing opportunity,” says Cunningham.

With huge scope of character, they knew right off the bat that Easttown wouldn’t have one main street – “it was more like the grouping of townships,” says Cunningham.

“Mare was the nucleus of our character,” Cunningham adds. “Everything about this community in our story is connected to her so we literally connected a lot of details throughout all of the characters and there’s a little something in each of their dwellings that you can tie back to Mare and vice versa. This visual metaphor was very subtle.”