‘Inspired’ Kate Winslet revels in telling Lee Miller’s tale

Kate Winslet has made it a personal passion project to bring the life of trailblazing World War II correspondent and Vogue photojournalist Lee Miller to the big screen.

Kate Winslet’s new movie is on World War II correspondent and Vogue photojournalist Lee Miller. Picture: Annemarieke van Drimmelen for Vogue Australia

Kate Winslet has played many multifaceted women on screen, but it’s her role as trailblazing World War II correspondent and Vogue photojournalist Lee Miller whose story she feels most compelled to tell.

As producer and star of Lee, which hits cinemas this month, Winslet has made it a personal passion project to bring Miller’s life to the big screen.

Beyond being a Vogue model, Surrealist artist and muse and lover to May Ray, in midlife Miller followed Allied forces into Europe where she reported on the atrocities at Dachau concentration camp and famously posed in Hitler’s Munich bathtub the same day he died in a bunker in Berlin.

“What I honestly feel is a profound duty to redefine how she is viewed, to make sure that this younger generation of women who might be discovering Lee Miller for the first time, or simply coming to know about her, know the part that she’d be most proudest of,” Winslet tells Vogue Australia.

“Lee was complicated, difficult, not entirely loveable but admirable beyond measure. And by the far the most inspiring person I’ve ever played.”

Winslet appears on the cover of October Vogue, out on Monday, to mark the release of Lee. She was interviewed by longtime friend and former Vogue Australia editor Marion Hume, who also co-wrote the film’s screenplay. The pair worked closely with Miller’s son, Antony Penrose, whose biography, The Lives of Lee Miller, serves as the basis for the film.

Kate Winslet’s new movie is on World War II correspondent and Vogue photojournalist Lee Miller. Picture: Annemarieke van Drimmelen for Vogue Australia

Winslet is quick to call out Miller, who died in 1977 at the age of 70, as a woman who was equal parts courageous and complicated, but she resists drawing any parallels to call herself brave. Even when reflecting on ongoing bullying and media pressure to adhere to a particular body type in her 20s as a young woman in the film industry, Winslet is adamant she’s just a normal person pushing back.

“Ballsy. Rebellious. Outspoken. These big punchy words,” she tells Vogue Australia. “All I’ve ever done is be a woman with an opinion. Curves? Just call it a normal body that isn’t toned and toned within an inch of its life.

“Not wearing makeup on screen? That’s not brave. I’m not in Ukraine. I’m an actor. I love my job. I’m bloody lucky to do it. I’m not on the frontline.”

Winslet embraces ageing. “I see getting older as thrilling. I’m becoming more comfortable in myself every year … It’s more a sense of safety within who I am, where I’m at. I’m very happy with my physical self, how my face is. As we get older, we become more womanly, more juicy, more interesting. We have more stories to tell.”

Winslet will be sharing some of those stories as part of the promotional tour for Lee. Along with Penrose, and fellow producer Kate Solomon, she will participate in a special conversation with Vogue Australia editorial director Edwina McCann on October 21 in Sydney.