Kate Winslet is known for reinventing herself time and time again on screen, but in a recent sit-down interview with British Vogue’s features director, Giles Hattersley, she presents perhaps the most compelling character of all: herself. “I can’t imagine a day in the life with Kate Winslet,” Hattersley says, to which Winslet responds: “Our home is full of things and chaos and color and dogs and people, and there’s always food smells, absolutely always.” Besides, she adds, “We keep chickens, which I love, so there’s often the gathering of the chicken eggs.” (Can we come over for dinner?)
After describing her family’s proclivity for ice baths, Winslet switches gears to talk about Lee, the forthcoming biographical drama that she produced and stars in, playing pioneering war photographer and former model Lee Miller. Unusually enough, the story for the film came to Winslet courtesy of a pair of antique-seller friends in Cornwall, from whom the actor bought an antique table that had previously belonged to a relative of Miller’s husband Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård in the film). Owning the table led Winslet to wonder why nobody had ever made a film about Miller, and just like that, Lee was born. During World War II, Miller “went to the offices of Vogue in London and got herself a job as a photographer documenting the Blitz, and when the time came, she fought her way to the front line and went to war and photographed the atrocities of the Nazi regime,” explains Winslet.
Miller’s photographs—including of the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald, which ran in Vogue’s pages—“are amongst some of the most significant historical images ever taken, and people don’t really know that,” Winslet continues. Yet beyond the rush of getting to tell that important story, Winslet took special pleasure in informing Andy Samberg, who appears opposite her in Lee as photographer David E. Scherman, that he’d been cast in his first-ever dramatic role. Indeed, the film proved transformative for both actors. “I felt a little bit as though I had been inhabited by Lee,” says Winslet of what she calls “by far the most important preparation for any role that I’ve ever done.”
Watch her full, riveting conversation with Hattersley above.
Director: Luke Spencer
Director of Photography: Arthur Loveday
Editor: Evan Allan
Senior Producer: Jordin Rocchi
Associate Director, Creative Development: Alexandra Gurvitch
On-Set Producer: Benjamin Whitley
Camera Operators: Bradley Panda, Matt Farrant
Assistant Camera: Chanthila Phaophanit
Gaffer: Laurent Arnaud
Audio: Valerio Cerini
Photographer: Annie Leibovitz
Behind-the-Scenes Photos: Antony Penrose
Production Coordinator: Ava Kashar
Production Manager: Kit Fogarty
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Senior Director, Production Management: Jessica Schier
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Postproduction Coordinator: Jovan James
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Postproduction Supervisor: Edward Taylor
Entertainment Director: Sergio Kletnoy
Director of Content, Production: Rahel Gebreyes
Senior Director, Programming: Linda Gittleson
Executive Producer: Ruhiya Nuruddin
VP, Digital Video, English: Thespena Guatieri
Filmed on Location: The Ham Yard Hotel
© Lee Miller Archives, England 2023. All rights reserved. www.leemiller.co.uk
Roland Penrose © Lee Miller Archives, England 2023. All rights reserved. www.leemiller.co.uk
Antony Penrose © Lee Miller Archives, England 2023. All rights reserved. www.leemiller.co.uk
David E. Scherman © Courtesy Lee Miller Archives, England 2023. All rights reserved. www.leemiller.co.uk
Note: This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
