Q&A: Kate Winslet on bringing the story of World War II photographer Lee Miller to the big screen

When Kate Winslet she came across Lee Miller’s extraordinary story and didn’t want to part with it.

Miller was an American photographer who became a correspondent for British Vogue during World War II, photographing everything from London after the Blitz to the liberation of Dachau. In 1945, David E. Scherman took a rather famous photo of her in Hitler’s bathtub in Munich.

Before the war, Miller had already led many lives as a model and the so-called “muse” for surrealists like Man-Ray. She then continued to document events in Eastern Europe, all the while struggling with alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the trauma of sexual assault at a young age.

Winslet didn’t just want to play this woman; she wanted to bring this story to fruition. This led her to a nearly 10-year journey to bring “Lee” to the big screen. It will open nationwide on Friday.

The Oscar winner spoke to The Associated Press about the film, its impact and the hardest day she’s ever experienced as an actress. Comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Why do you think Lee Miller captured your imagination so much?

WINSLET: A lot of people ask me, understandably, why Lee Miller? Why now? This is obvious, not only because of how important her work was, but also because of what she represented in terms of being a woman. She redefined femininity 80 years ago to mean everything it means to us now: resilience, compassion, determination, community, empathy and strength. She wasn’t some up-and-coming little chick trying to make a name for herself. She was a middle-aged woman who had already lived so much of her life that she moved to Europe. She knew what was at stake. She knew she would put herself in danger. She knew it was a huge risk, but she did it because she felt compelled to be a visual voice for the victims of the conflict.

AP: Many of my colleagues who work at the Associated Press do this, run towards danger, towards conflict, to bear witness. Did you feel like you could relate to it, or was it more of a distance thing?

WINSLET: When I go to work, I never do it remotely. The idea of ​​protecting yourself or relaxing at the end of the day with a nice hot bath and a glass of wine, I just hadn’t learned that. And I don’t know if I want that. I don’t think that’s how I work. I started this process in 2015, I went and sat down with (Miller’s son) Antony Penrose, and I didn’t find out (how) I met his mother until after she died. It completely blew me away. Not only did he learn who she really was and what she did during the war, but he also gained another level of understanding of why she was the way she was as a mother. As soon as I went to meet Antoni, something happened to me. Something that goes beyond acting.

AP: This is the feature directorial debut of cinematographer Ellen Kuras, whose origins date back to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

WINSLET: She might have been the first female cinematographer I was working with at that point. But there weren’t many women on sets in those days. There were almost never women in the camera department. Ellen and I were kind of together because we were on a male-dominated set – we were happy to be there – but two of the very few women. And although it was a great adventure, the photos were really difficult. We always had to do so much in one day, and it happened to be a brutal New York winter. We remained friends and worked together again on A Little Chaos (Winslet suggested it to her Alan Rickman). I thought to myself: why isn’t she in the lead role? This made sense on many levels. This was a person who had been a visual learner for decades of his life, conveying narratives in a very powerful visual way. And that’s exactly what Lee Miller did. It wouldn’t sit well with me if it was a man. It almost feels like Lee is shaking her fists at me as she lies on the grave.

AP: People have tried to tell Lee’s story before, but her son never felt like they got it right until you came along. This film doesn’t shy away from all aspects of Lee Miller: her drive, her demons, and her trauma.

WINSLET: We made this movie because I wanted people to discover Lee Miller as Lee Miller, the real Lee Miller on her terms in her most defining decade, and not as Man-Ray’s former lover and former muse, those kinds of reductive, sexist terms.

Her streak of injustice was so powerful within her. And because she never told anyone what happened to her as a child, it fueled her and gave her a way of looking at the world. The women survivors of sexual harassment I interviewed during the preparatory process had two things in common: they never talked about it and the fact that they could see evil from a mile away. Lee had it. She had this innate ability to tolerate hell.

In the scene where she reveals to (Vogue editor) Audrey (Withers) what happened to her when she was 7, Andrea (Riseborough, who plays Withers) and I said at the end of the day of shooting that it was without a doubt the hardest day in her life. filmmaking that we have ever done in our lives as actors. Just this one day. This sounds a bit extreme. I kind of avoid talking about the acting process because ultimately it’s not rocket science. We don’t cure cancer. We are not on the front line alone. Sometimes, though, you get there to the point where you feel a little possessed. And that can be a little scary.

What took my breath away was how women, complete strangers, came up to me, grabbed my arm, pulled me towards them and said, “It was me. I was told never to tell. This is where filmmaking can be truly amazing, if for just a split second you can make the viewer feel seen or embraced.