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Kate Winslet on Bringing the True Story of Lee Miller to Life on Screen
Season 15, Ep. 2
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Our second discussion is with Academy Award winning actress Kate Winslet who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe for her turn as photographer Elizabeth 'Lee' Miller in Ellen Kuras' Lee. We first meet Lee in the months before WW2 commences, where Lee worked as a fashion model before forging a path for women journalists in wartime as she became a war correspondent for Vogue magazine.
Lee's photography from that era is some of the finest work you will see focused on WW2, yet after the war, she sought to hide much of the work she did, with her son eventually finding many of her photos after she had passed away. Kuras and Winslet choose to frame Lee's story with an impossible conversation that sees Josh O'Connor's Antony Penrose sitting down with Lee Miller to talk through her life and her work in a haze of cigarette smoke. There's an emotional truth here that resonates strongly throughout the film that is keenly felt by the original writing by Penrose himself, otherwise known as the son of Sir Roland Penrose and Lee Miller.
In the following conversation, Kate talks about the journey of bringing Lee's story to life, including the importance of engaging in era-specific photography, as well as the need to be able to tell these kinds of stories in todays day and age. This conversation is pulled from two separate discussions, one from a panel discussion, and the second as a one on one interview with Kate. In the first discussion, I was briefly interrupted, which is what you will hear in the following chat.
Lee is now available to view on demand in Australia. It is as good as any wartime biopic that you'll see, with Winslet giving a powerful and impactful performance which is deftly supported by a rare dramatic turn from Andy Samberg, who equally deserves recognition and accolades for his work. They're both supported by a cast that includes Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough, Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, and Alexander Skarsgard.
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