Kate Winslet explains why her new film Lee was nine years in the making

Virgin Radio

11 Sep 2024, 10:04

Oscar-winner Kate Winslet stars as a war journalist in new film, Lee, which lands in cinemas this week, having been in development for the best part of a decade.

The movie - which is released on Friday 13th September - tells the true story of New Yorker Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller, who, refusing to simply be remembered as a model and muse, moved to Paris to study photography, and ended up as a photojournalist on the front-lines of WWII. 

Joining The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, Kate spoke about how Miller, as Chris put it, “lived many lives”. She said: “Well, that was the challenge about making this film, and that's why it was seven years of development until the point of actually going and making the film. And now it's nine full years, and here it is.”

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Indeed, the film was such a long time in the making that Kate told Chris: “I still can't actually believe I'm on your show talking about it, because I have thought about, ‘Wow, the film is going to get made. It's going to come out one day, and I'm going to come and talk to Chris.’ I mean, seriously, I promise you.”

She continued: “But the development process was lengthy, largely because she lived so many lives, as you say. In her later years, she had a face lift and became a cordon bleu chef. I mean, seriously, she was absolutely unbelievable, but I just felt that it was so important to celebrate the most spectacular decade of her life, which stayed with her. She did get terrible PTSD. She had a child after the war, unexpectedly. She had a very tricky relationship with her son, Antony Penrose, who was very much a part of the film, and is very much alive today.”

Speaking about how Lee Miller paved the way for others, the Titanic star said: “Like so many people who experienced that conflict, they tucked it away and they never talked about it, just in an effort to forget. But what she did, she was one of the early reportage photographers, and I've started to realise that, were it not for the courage of women like Lee, would female war correspondents now have that place that they rightfully have?

"They've more than earned their seat at that table, and the things that they tell us, the courage that they have to go into those conflict zones and to reveal to us things that we would never otherwise know about, and it's incredibly important, so that people's stories and lives are remembered. And that's what Lee started. And it's just incredible, the courage she had.”

The cast also features Alexander Skarsgård, Andrea Riseborough, Josh O’Connor, Marion Cotillard and Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Andy Samberg, who plays fellow photographer David E. Scherman. “They were inseparable,” Kate said of Lee and Scherman. 

“And in reality, he absolutely was head over heels in love with her. And they did have an intimate relationship. She was just so juicy and delicious. She was extraordinary. And, actually, he took a photograph of her once in the Scribe Hotel in Paris, which was sort of their base, really, when they were documenting large parts of the war. But he took a photograph of her, and he said, ‘This is the way I love you the most, looking like an unmade bed.’ And isn't that wonderful? What a wonderful way to describe a middle aged, sexy, powerful woman. 

“He adored her, and they really did do everything together to the point of finding their way into Hitler's Munich apartment when he had fled and was hiding in his bunker in Berlin, and she took a bath in Hitler's bathtub!”

Speaking about inhabiting the role of a war photographer of the era, Kate told Chris: “I was very fortunate that I had access to the archive, which meant that I had full access to her camera kit as well. So I really had my hands on her camera, on her camera case, I could see everything that she had done to accommodate it for her own needs and her very, very tiny hands. So I obviously learned how to use the Rolleiflex camera. Ours was a complete replica, an exact replica of Lee's actual camera."

Explaining that a Rolleiflex camera “sits somewhere between the heart and the stomach,and the image is you look down into the camera,” Kate said: “It was incredibly important to me that that camera never felt or looked like a prop, because I think you can sometimes see if an actor feels a bit uncomfortable with what they're doing, if too much is made of it perhaps. 

“I just had to make that camera become an extension of my arms, so that it just disappeared. And Lee's real skill set as a woman, as a female photographer, and this is what sets her apart, is that in being able to look down at that image as she's taking the photograph, she was able to look into the eyes of the people she was photographing and really see who they were, see into their soul and capture their story, whilst also looking to left and right and looking for the next scoop.”

The Mare of Easttown actor continued: “Lee, she was a realist. She just didn't believe in hiding behind or from the truth. And I think because she had had to learn to live with a trauma herself, she had this very powerful streak of injustice in her, and that served her well in terms of keeping her going through the war.”

To conclude, Kate told listeners: “I have to say, and we've just been talking about cameras, and, of course, the camera’s on the iPhone, but grown ups, just get your kids to put the phone down, get outside, get curious, climb a tree, look around. You've only got one life, and that was how Lee lived hers.” 

Read more about why Kate found "woman's woman" Lee Miller so inspirational here.

Lee is in cinemas this Friday, 13th September. The film is also coming to Sky Cinema in 2024.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.