Kate Winslet on Producing Lee Miller Biopic ‘Lee’ Against the Odds: ‘She Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer, Which Is a Lot Like Me’

Kate Winslet is “very excited to be one year closer to 50,” she said at the Zurich Film Festival. “It’s a very thrilling time!”

“I am not going anywhere, but I don’t really think about legacy as much as I think about how important it is to tell stories and make films. To be someone who always wants to do this job doesn’t just mean playing interesting parts. It’s more than that – it’s about the entire experience.”

As she decided to move into producing with “Lee” – previously, Winslet exec produced the likes of “Mare of Easttown” and “The Regime” – she admitted that these days, “younger actresses absolutely have a voice.”

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“For a woman to say ‘No, I’m not comfortable with that’? That didn’t exist. It was better to just be grateful and not complain because ‘nobody likes a girl who complains.’ That has changed,” she added, looking back. An Oscar, BAFTA and Emmy winner, Winslet received the Golden Icon Award at the Swiss fest.

“There’s a big surge coming and I think I can feel it. With my female friends, there is an awareness of one another more, as women. Female friendships feel more vital than ever and we hear women’s stories with new ears.”

Stories like the one about Lee Miller, model-turned-war photographer who died in 1977. But “Lee,” directed by Ellen Kuras, wasn’t easy to make.

“We didn’t have anything handed to us on a plate. I did come up against people, forgive me – men – who just didn’t understand what this film was. It’s about a woman who was challenged, who doesn’t look a pretty picture for most of the film, who was getting down and dirty with life. I did have a potential financier say to me: ‘So, why should I like this woman?’ Okay, so not you then,” revealed Winslet.

“One director wanted me to make a film I really wasn’t sure about. He said: ‘If you make it, I’ll help you get your ‘little Lee Miller film’ funded.’ Again – NO! You won’t help me, go away. I wasn’t going to work with people Lee wouldn’t have approved of.”

Winslet added: “This is not a film about war, this is a film about a woman. That’s what people are taking away from it and that’s what we were hoping for.”

She got the idea for it after coming into possession of a certain antique table.

“Food and family have always been a very important part of my life. It’s how I grew up and how we are raising our children. [The table] used to be in the holiday home of the Penrose family. Lee Miller and Roland Penrose were lovers and they would spend weeks across wonderful summers with their surrealist friends and creative collaborators.”

“This was the table where they would eat. I sat at it and thought: ‘Lee Miller, I wonder why nobody has made a film about her.’ I immediately tried to look into the rights.”

Miller’s son, Antony, who discovered his mother’s work only after her death – “He had no idea what she’d done during the war. They had a ‘colorful’ relationship and we talked about how his respect for her deepened,” said Winslet – helped her “redefine” Miller’s image, still best remembered for being a model and “that irritating word, muse” of Man Ray.

“My hope is that you will meet her this way, on her own terms,” she noted, praising Miller’s work in documenting “the truth of the Nazi regime, the courage she had and her ability to redefine femininity.”

“She kept reinventing who she was. She talked about how restless she was as a woman in the world. She had to go into the action, whatever it was that she was doing.”

Especially in her photography.

“Lee was looking into the cracks, documenting stories of the victims and people left behind. She didn’t need to be the queen and didn’t like the attention. She just wanted to reveal the truth. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, which is a lot like me, actually.”

Winslet might focus on another “real woman who did incredible things” in a future film, as long as she doesn’t have to “set aside a decade for every single one of them.”

“I still can’t believe I don’t have to keep trying to make this film – I was trying to do it for such a long time. Now, I have this overwhelming feeling of pride, which is so important [to acknowledge]. We forget to stop and say: ‘I am really proud of myself.’ Especially as women.”