Emmy Winner Julianne Nicholson Would '100%' Rejoin Kate Winslet and Jean Smart for More Mare of Easttown (Exclusive)

Mare of Easttown ended with an emotional bang, thanks largely to its Emmy-winning star Julianne Nicholson. But is there any chance of a second season for the Kate Winslet-led series?

“It's not impossible,” Nicholson, 52, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “You never know.”

More importantly, if creator Brad Ingelsby were to pursue a sequel to the hit HBO limited series, would Nicholson reprise her role as Lori Ross? “100%,” says the actress. 

“If there were one and Kate still was Mare and Jean [Smart] was her mom and Brad wrote it,” she says by way of caveat. 

“I'm definitely not waiting for it,” adds Nicholson. “I'm not losing sleep over it. But if that was happening and I was invited to join, yeah, definitely.”

Mare of Easttown, which follows a small-town murder investigation outside Philadelphia, took viewers by storm in 2021. At the subsequent Primetime Emmy Awards, it dominated the limited series categories as Winslet took home her second trophy for the eponymous detective, Mare Sheehan. Meanwhile, Nicholson and fellow supporting actor Evan Peters became first-time Emmy winners. 

For the outstanding limited or anthology series prize, the show was nominated alongside I May Destroy You, The Underground Railroad, WandaVision and the category’s eventual winner, The Queen's Gambit.

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Nicholson remembers that ceremony as being “so amazing.” Although, the night was not without its wrinkles.

After a 2020 Emmys ceremony produced almost completely remotely, TV’s best gathered at L.A. Live in Downtown Los Angeles — without the help of publicists, according to the Masters of Sex star.

“Everybody was just so happy to be there, it felt so nice to be with people that you may not have seen for a while,” she recalls to PEOPLE. But “there were no PR people there. They had a crew of people that work for the [Emmys] show, but nobody had their own PR people helping to negotiate. People were cutting in line. It was a disaster.”

What resulted, Nicholson remembers with a laugh, was a “sort of trauma” in “trying to get on the red carpet to get your picture taken, which was a nightmare. Everybody's like, ‘The show's going to start, you can't get your picture.’ I was like, ‘But I have to get my picture taken because no one will ever want to lend me a dress again!’”

Luckily, getting her photo taken in her Giambattista Valli floral gown ended up being no problem — it helps to win a statuette. “It was all good,” says Nicholson. “It wound up being very easy to get my picture taken. But before the show started, much less so!”

After her red carpet experience that was “like the Titanic,” she jokes, “it wound up being a great night.”

In her Emmys speech, Nicholson thanked her Mare of Easttown costar and executive producer Winslet, 48. "Man, you're good at acting," she said with a laugh onstage. "Turns out, you're good at caring for a whole production. You led all of us every step of the way with such care and intelligence and love … I owe this to you.”

Ingelsby, 43, revealed to The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 that more Mare of Easttown isn’t off the table. "It was written as a limited, and it ends,” he said at the time. But, he added, “Kate and I, if we could crack a story that we were really proud of and felt like it was a deserving second chapter in Mare's journey, then maybe … I haven't cracked that yet.”

Nicholson costars with Nicolas Cage in this year’s hit A24 film Dream Scenario, in theaters now. She is also currently filming a BBC series, Dope Girls, in London, where she lives with her family.