Kate Winslet gets real about portraying war correspondent and photographer Lee Miller in ‘Lee’

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If there’s one thing Kate Winslet wants the world to know, it’s that she doesn’t want to be defined “as somebody who just didn’t get sh*t done. I want to be remembered as somebody who stood up for people and who was a decent person,” she tells us in a video interview. 

As someone who has been in the industry for over 30 years, Winslet has always strived to be true to herself, taking up roles that are meaningful to her. Her latest is perhaps the closest to her heart, it’s a passion project that she has worked on for over eight years: LEE, tells the story of Lee Miller, an American war correspondent and photographer who covered WWII in Europe for British Vogue. Her photographs of the war and its victims are among the most significant and historically important of the Second World War. She changed war photography forever.

As a middle-aged woman, Lee refused to be remembered as a model, covergirl and male artists’ muse (she was the subject of the avant-garde photographer Man Ray). She defied the expectations and rules of the time and travelled to Europe to report from the frontline. She challenged the patriarchy and paved the way in a male-dominated space.  

It’s easy to draw parallels between Lee and Winslet, two women in front of the camera who are looking behind the lens and caring deeply about telling stories that matter. They’re bold and defiant, bound to break rules along the way as they march to the beat of their own drum. Lee didn’t take no for an answer and got things done, and Winslet fiercely channels that same grit and gusto. She not only gave an award-worthy performance as Lee, but also worked tirelessly to get this film made as a producer, and was involved in the creative process from start to finish.

“It was such a privilege to play her. There were so many things about her that I found extraordinarily inspirational,“ Winslet said. “So there’s a lot of her that has stayed with me and I feel very happy and proud about that.”

Directed by Ellen Kuras, who makes her feature directorial debut, the film also stars Andy Samberg as LIFE Magazine photographer David E. Scherman; Alexander Skarsgård as English Surrealist painter and photographer Roland Penrose; Marion Cotillard as Solange D’Ayen, the duchess, fashion director of French Vogue and Andrea Riseborough as British Vogue editor Audrey Withers.

It was a chance moment that led Winslet to Lee’s story. A friend of hers reached out about a table she found during an auction. “Knowing my love of cooking and hosting big dinners and my love of old tables, my friend knew this would fire up my intrigue. So, I bought it. It’s beautiful. It’s old and gnarly, with a rough uneven surface. It seats about eight!”

Turns out, the table was owned by Annie Penrose, the sister-in-law of Roland Penrose, who later became Lee Miller’s husband. It was the very same table where Lee had many summers with the likes of Max Ernst, Paul Éluard and Picasso, where they would prepare meals and discuss ideas. It’s the acquisition of this very table that set Winslet on her own creative journey.

Kate then worked closely with Lee and Roland’s son Antony Penrose to learn about the determined, powerful, yet flawed middle-aged woman who had the courage to take risks and head off to the frontline all by herself. Winslet used Antony’s book, The Lives of Lee Miller, as a starting point for her research. Antony also published a book titled, Lee Miller: Photographs, which collects Lee’s most famous documentary, fashion and war works, as well as photographs of her, with a foreword penned by Winslet herself.

Winslet’s curiosity and determination to be authentic in her portrayal led her to study photography with a Rolleiflex expert so that she could realistically set up and take the photos in the film. Throughout filming, her Rolleiflex camera was loaded with real film. Lee’s tenacity delivered some of the 20th century’s most indelible images and Winslet channels this tenacity, too. 

Winslet’s resume boasts a long list of popular titles, like Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Holiday, The Reader and more recently, HBO’s Mare of Easttown, which earned her an Emmy. LEE  joins the ranks as a solid contender for the Oscars, with award-season buzz already surrounding her work in this film. 

According to Winslet, “Playing her has also taught me something about myself, I’ve always strived to use my voice to support other women, but I feel inspired by Lee to do that so much more.”

Ahead of LEE’s release in theatres this Friday, we spoke with Winslet, Andy Samberg and Andrea Riseborough about the film. 

Q: Kate, while playing Lee, you said you were surprised daily at just how similar to her you felt as a woman in the world. How so?

Kate: I’ve always been very true to myself, and I’ve always been quite quietly determined, and I’ve also always tried very hard not to judge people. Lee didn’t judge anyone. She treated everyone absolutely the same and she really was able to engage with people and be utterly present. That was truly her skill set when she went to the frontline, being able to look down into her Rolleiflex camera, but then lift up her eye to really make those connections with people, to really feel their experience and to understand who they were and what was happening to them. Her ability to truly be in the experience with that person, with those individuals, whatever circumstance she was presented with, despite how traumatic it was for her, she knew she had to do it because she wanted to do it for the female readers of British Vogue and make sure that the world knew about these voiceless victims who had gone missing and were being left behind. She was just extraordinary.

Q: Kate, after eight years of working on your passion project and being a hands-on producer, it must have left a footprint on your life. You said you loved discovering Lee and all the sides to her. In doing so, have you discovered anything about yourself as an artist?

Kate: I’ve always been pretty good at multitasking, but I think I’ve taken it to a whole other level, because of my ability to both be in the scene and able to think, ‘Okay, we need to really move off the scene soon, because we’re going to run out of time and we need to get to that other scene with Andy.’ I mean, there was just so much more multitasking on a creative level than I’ve ever had to do before. And I really loved it. So that was a good thing. It would have been bad if I’d hated it. But no, I absolutely loved it, and I learned so much. You can just never, ever stop learning. 

Q: Andy, this is your first dramatic role. I read that you were terrified because of people’s preconceived ideas of you being the funny guy. What allowed you to shed that to play David?

Andy: Really just the support of everyone, starting with Kate, but she kept telling me she believed I could do it and honestly I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I had a chance of being right for it. I connected with David Scherman’s story, and I look a lot like he looked, which is always a nice place to start mentally when you’re doing something like this, but there was a lot of connective tissue between his life and mine, and I kind of just tried to prepare as much as I possibly could.

Q: Andrea, when it came to playing Audrey, was there an accessory or an item, or even the memoir she wrote, Dressed for War, that helped you unlock her?

Andrea: Of course, all of them, everything you know. I think when you play a character who existed, you feel a real responsibility to just mine everything. There’s no stone unturned, you know. It was wonderful immersing myself in Audrey’s history, because she was such a lover of art and such a great supporter of Lee’s, and really believed in her as a photojournalist and a war correspondent. She wanted to do everything to allow her to have a platform to bring that information back to people in Britain at the time. So she was a fascinating woman. There were huge amounts of material to get through, all of which I relished.

Q: Kate, I saw parallels between you and Lee, two women in front of the camera looking behind the lens and caring about the work. When you’re working on Lee’s legacy and her narrative, did you reflect on your own and how you’d want or not want to be defined after decades in the business?

Kate: I don’t want to be defined as somebody who just didn’t get sh*t done (laughs). I want to be remembered as somebody who stood up for people and who was a decent person. You know, it’s very important in this world of film. Sometimes you can meet personalities who don’t necessarily live life in the same way that you do. You might not always see eye to eye on certain things, but it’s very, very important to be open and not judge and to remain calm and to be kind and respectful, and so I hope to be defined and maybe remembered in that way.

Q: For Lee, she is always armed with her camera. We rarely see her without it. For you as actors, what’s the armour you always have with you?

Kate: The script! I never put it down. It’s always with me. It always comes with me on set. Often I have to find a place to hide it, because it’s constantly important to know every single beat, what’s coming next, what somebody else might be experiencing, what just immediately happened before. How many days have gone by? How many nights have gone by between that scene we shot yesterday and now? Oh, wow. Okay, six weeks, right? Okay, so just lots and lots of notes in my script as reminders of things, often a timeline reminder. I really feel I need that. And so that’s my armour.

Andy: I mean, for me, it was the camera. My father is a photographer, so I grew up with a photographer in my home, and I know what that looks and feels like. And that’s a personality, it’s someone with the camera around their neck in front of them, and when it’s time to take that picture, that’s the most important thing.

Andrea: I suppose for Audrey, the heavy acts of a pen really are the only power that she has as editor. So yes, perhaps the pen.

Q: Kate, how do you shake off a character like this and get back to being Kate?

Kate: I don’t think I have shaken her off yet in so many ways. And you know, there are some characters you really want to get rid of, like, just get out of your system. But Lee, it was such a privilege playing her and there were so many things about her that I found extraordinarily inspirational. So there’s a lot of her that has stayed in me and I feel very happy and proud about that. 

LEE is in theatres this Friday, Sept. 27.

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