After nearly a decade of trying to tell war correspondent Lee Miller’s story, Kate Winslet’s passion project, Lee, finally arrives in theaters on Sept. 27.
“I’m getting good at not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” the Oscar winner tells Yahoo Entertainment.
Winslet’s nine-year journey wasn’t without its bumps as she recalls one illuminating meeting with an unnamed male investor.
“I met with many different potential investors over the years, and I had a coffee meeting with a male investor once. He sat down, he goes, ‘So why should I like this woman?’ And I was like, ‘Ah, OK. I’m gonna take that as a no,'” she says.
“It was great because it just motivated me so much more to move away from that individual, knowing there was absolutely no way I was going to make a film with him because he didn’t understand what I was trying to do. He didn’t understand who Lee was,” Winslet continues. “And that to me was like … ‘that’s why I have to make this film is because of people like you saying this stupid stuff.’ So stupid. So dumb.”
Lee portrays a decade in the life of the World War II American war correspondent and photographer. Winslet was captivated by Miller’s story because “she was somehow part of history that not only was not particularly talked about, but wasn’t even talked about in an accurate or even appropriate way.”
“She was so viewed through the male gaze, [and] described as the former muse, ex-lover of [artist] Man Ray, former Vogue cover girl. These labels that we place on women that are never ever placed on men, and yet, who Lee Miller truly was, was a war correspondent who went to the front lines when women were not permitted to go. And who fought for every single space that she was able to get herself into and documented the atrocities of the Nazi regime for the female readers of British Vogue,” Winslet declares. “That is a story I want to go and watch, and that’s a story I want to tell.”
Winslet and her producing partner Kate Solomon were so driven to make Lee, the actress says it was difficult to unwind. When asked if she watches Bravo or any type of counterprogramming to unplug after a long day on set, she responded with a quick no.
“I’m not very good at unwinding,” she says. “And on Lee, I just couldn’t, there was no time,” she says. “I’d get home, [Kate and I] would be like, OK, quick shower, and then maybe we would sit down with a little glass of red wine. But we had work to do constantly.”
Winslet concedes, “I’m not very good at switching off and I actually don’t mind that. It’s OK. I switch off when I go to sleep. That’s it. The rest of it is all just being immersed in the work. And that’s just how I prefer to do it.”
Lee is in theaters now.