December 20, 2024 • 28 mins
In this episode, we speak to Academy Award winner Kate Winslet about her new film "Lee" - a biopic about the life of pioneering World War II correspondent Lee Miller, and her sensitive and stunning front-line photography. Hosted by Konrad Marshall, the discussion covers everything from the ups and downs for women in film, to life behind the lens.
We'll be back in January 2025 with plenty of exciting interviews booked in the calendar, but for now please enjoy one of our most popular episodes from the past year.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Conrad Marshall, host of Good Weekend Talks. After
a short summer break, the podcast will be back in
January with plenty of exciting interviews booked in the calendar already.
But for now, enjoy one of our most popular episodes
from 2024 and don't forget to subscribe, rate and share! Hi,
(00:24):
I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald and
The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine for
your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from sport
and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:46):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak to
Kate Winslet. The Oscar winning actress is in Australia right
now promoting her new film Lee, a biopic about the
life of pioneering war correspondent Lee Miller. Miller's photography from
the front lines of the Second World War famously captured
(01:08):
the most telling and sensitive micro details within that setting,
in a way that perhaps only a woman could. Her
images take viewers into the London Blitz, the liberation of
Paris and the atrocities of Nazi concentration camps in Buchenwald
and Dachau. Winslet is, of course, the star of films
(01:29):
and TV shows, from Titanic to Mare of Easttown, and
she joins me today from a hotel room in Sydney. Welcome, Kate.
S2 (01:38):
Thank you for having me.
S1 (01:40):
It's our pleasure. First off, I just wanted to confirm something.
I believe you have Lee Miller's kitchen table in your home.
How did that happen?
S2 (01:50):
I, I have, yes, I do. I have a table
that was owned in the Penrose holiday home, and when
Lee Miller and Roland Penrose were newly lovers, they would
spend a great deal of time in this home. And
Lee was an incredible cook. And that was the kitchen table.
(02:12):
And she would cook the food and they would eat
the food, and they would have these wonderful sort of
hedonistic summers of love with their surrealist friends all around them. And, uh,
and yeah, some friends of mine work for an auction house.
And the table came in and they called me and
they said, Kate, you've got to get this table and
told me the story behind it. And I just couldn't
(02:32):
believe it. And so I did get the table. And
that was back in 2015. And that was the beginning
of the whole journey for me. I just sat at
this table and I thought, wow. Lee Miller sat at
this table too. Why hasn't anyone made a film about her?
And that was really the beginning for me.
S1 (02:48):
Fantastic. I have to admit, I was largely ignorant of
Lee Miller before seeing your film. I know there was
a book, The Lives of Lee Miller, which was published
in 1999, almost a quarter of a century ago. But
there's something there's a little bit more cut through with movies.
Often it made me think of watching Hidden Figures, that
movie about a group of female African American mathematicians who
(03:12):
work with NASA on the on the space program. I
was wondering, what is it that you think makes movies
such a great vehicle for recognition or celebration of underappreciated figures?
S2 (03:26):
It's such a brilliant thing to to talk about. It
really is. I mean, with moviemaking, even extraordinary television, you know,
I mean, I'm a huge fan of being part of
episodic television for these wonderful streamers now as well. But
you do have the power to not just entertain people,
(03:46):
but to sometimes educate them on who it was, who
really did that extraordinary thing that you may or may
not necessarily know about, but even discovering somebody, perhaps for
the first time. Like maybe it sounds like you have
done with Lee Miller, but discovering them for who they
really were and what I found in putting the film
together and the five years I spent developing it before
(04:09):
we even had a movie that was ready to go.
I learned that so many women of historical significance were
often defined through the male gaze, or they had these
labels slapped on them. You know, Lee Miller was known
for having been this former cover girl, ex-lover and muse
of man Ray. That term muse, you know, it's very
(04:31):
reductive in a way, you know, almost infantilizing. And Lee
was a model for a tiny sliver of her life
in her 20s, and she hated being a model. She
couldn't wait to walk away from it and very famously said,
I'd rather take a picture than be one. She'd always
loved photography. She'd learned it from her father as a child.
It was something she'd always done, was very comfortable with
a camera, and that was what she wanted to do
(04:53):
with her life and having the courage that she had
to go to war as a woman to get the
right to go to get those permissions was incredibly tough.
No women were being allowed into those conflict zones, but
Lee just wouldn't take no for an answer. And this
decade of her life that we cover in the film,
for me, was when Lee really became Lee. She went
(05:15):
to war as a flawed, complicated, middle aged woman, and
she did it to bear witness, to be that visual
voice for the innocent victims of conflict. And when you
think about photojournalism today and what those individuals do to
capture those searing, arresting, sometimes terrifying images, it is the
most phenomenally selfless and brave job in order to reveal
(05:42):
the truth to those of us at home who have
no idea what's going on. And Lee was one of
those pioneering people who did that as a woman, and
it was just a story that I just felt it
really had to be told.
S3 (05:57):
It happened so slowly. Yeah. Kind of overnight. We woke
up one morning and Europe was at war.
S4 (06:05):
Only non-military assets for women.
S3 (06:08):
I just want to do my part. Why should the
men get to decide what that is? I'm heading to
the front. Ready to go?
S5 (06:17):
That's not what I thought you were gonna say.
S1 (06:20):
Watching this film in this moment, it's impossible. For at
least where I see it, not to reflect on the
journalists that have been killed in the past year during
the Israel-Gaza war. Recent reports suggest something like 128 media
workers have died, the vast majority of them Palestinian. And
that doesn't seem to have created that much of a
(06:42):
stir at all. Does that surprise you in this day
and age?
S6 (06:46):
Um.
S2 (06:48):
So many things surprise me in this day and age.
You know, I when I was putting Lee Miller together,
I was very, very fortunate to have a former female
photojournalist who now covers security for Reuters and who shall
remain nameless out of respect for her. She helped me
(07:08):
enormously in coming to understand what that job is like
for a woman now, today, and the sheer determination to
bear witness and never look away took my breath away
and still does. And that's why I wanted to play
(07:29):
this role, because Lee's ability to go out into the
world against all odds and do something to make a difference,
to tell those stories, to make sure that the victims
of conflict stories were upheld and told and never forgotten.
And to do that at a time when there was
no safety there, you know, there was no run for cover,
(07:53):
there was no get out of jail free card and
she carried on going. She didn't go home. She didn't
say this is too much. She stayed and she saw
it all through. And what she did was just extraordinary
and and admirable. And I bow down to anyone who
does that job.
S1 (08:12):
There are so many moments in the film that you
highlight how Miller bumped directly, kind of up against the patriarchy,
and punched on through to do what she wanted and
needed to do. I'm just wondering when you're finished with
a role like this, do you emerge with a little
bit of that same sort of chutzpah that she had?
(08:34):
Do you take a little bit of that with you
into your life, after you've sort of been that character
for a while?
S2 (08:41):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, you do. And because the film,
because the film was developed over a number of years,
I was in a position where I had full and
complete access to the archive, which exists in in the UK,
and it's an internationally renowned art archive run by members
(09:04):
of Lee's family. Her granddaughter Amy and her son Antony Penrose,
who was a very important collaborator for me in putting
the film together. But because I had that level of
access and that level of trust, I was able to
be so immersed in not just her photographs, but in
in her life. Personal diaries, letters between her and Rowland,
(09:27):
extensive letters between her and Audrey Withers, which really gave
me access to a side of her that I wouldn't
have otherwise had. That very female relationship that she had
with Audrey. That was quite unusual at the time, and
she stayed very close friends with Audrey Withers until until
Lee passed away in 1977.
S1 (09:48):
Audrey Withers being the the editor of Vogue.
S2 (09:51):
Exactly. Audrey Withers, being the editor at the time of
British Vogue, and Audrey Withers, played by Andrea Riseborough, so
brilliantly in our film. She was an extraordinary woman because
she actually had wanted to be a writer. She was
a very left leaning individual and she she really championed
other women. And Lee had never really written before. And
(10:12):
going and being a photographer in the way that she was,
that was one thing. But then having to really dig
in and write about what she was witnessing was quite
another thing. And Lee was really nervous of that. She
didn't know if she was going to be capable of
doing it at all. And in the letters between Lee
and Audrey, Lee so often says to come on, dear girl,
you can do it. We're cheering for you back home.
(10:34):
You've got it in you just keep going. And then
Audrey would. Lee would write back to her and say, oh,
thank you so much. And by the way, would you
mind just sending me a tin of Ovaltine, some new earplugs,
and possibly a couple of spare pairs of pantyhose, because
I've got runners all through mine. And then Audrey would
send her these amazing care packages. And so it was
really all there. And so, yeah, loads of it stayed
(10:57):
with me. The essence of who Lee Miller was this
incredibly inspiring woman and how she lived her life, um,
with just integrity and compassion and power and resilience. You know, I'm,
I try and live my life by that, and my
sisters do and my friends do. And it just reinforced
for me the importance of that, especially, I think, in
(11:18):
the world we live in today and how we want
to raise our daughters. Um, and yeah, so a lot
of of who Lee was has definitely stayed with me.
S1 (11:26):
I've read about the amount of time that you spent
going through those archives that the they sort of expected
you to turn up and read through some material for
a little while and then leave. But you were a
constant visitor, sort of burrowing in to learn by, uh, osmosis. Um,
you also said at some point that you, you felt
(11:48):
it was maybe the most traumatic role that you'd ever had,
that it left an imprint on you. Was that to
do with what we now assume was her depression and
PTSD and struggles with alcohol after the war? What was
the tough part?
S2 (12:05):
It was it was all tough. It was all tough
putting the film together, putting the financing together, putting the
crew together, the cast, all of it. It was absolutely wonderful.
But every single part of it was was absolutely tough.
But as, as as an actor and now filmmaker, in
(12:25):
having produced the film as well, you know, sometimes when
you're recreating scenes of, of a historical nature that you
absolutely know happened and you're trying to do that in
the most authentic way you possibly can, whilst you know
that what you're doing isn't real, you absolutely know that
it was real, right? And the responsibility that comes with
(12:48):
that is, is is enormous. And especially when you have
family members who are still alive and for whom this
story is incredibly important and means so much to Anthony Penrose,
Lee's son, that the film has now been made. I mean,
I tried to make it for it's now nine years and,
and and Anthony had been waiting something like 35 years
(13:11):
to see this film get made, and many people had
tried before and, and and hadn't done it. Um, so
when you're recreating scenes, entering Dachau concentration camp, discovering the
train carriages, um, and also working through Lee's very traumatic
childhood where something horrific had happened to her, a deeply
(13:34):
buried secret that she was told never to tell. Like
so many women, um, she refused to allow that thing
to define who she was. But it did give her
this very powerful streak of injustice that literally vibrated inside her,
I feel throughout her entire adult life. So recreating that
(13:56):
level of intensity and trauma and truth. Yeah, it's really,
you know, it is very difficult because. But you have
to do it if you want people to believe what
it is that you're doing, you have to do it.
And it just mattered to me to do the best
job I possibly could and to honor who she was
for her son, Anthony Penrose's sake, if for no other
reason other than that. Actually, it was very important to
(14:17):
me that he was happy.
S1 (14:18):
It did have a very truthful and sort of unvarnished feel.
There's a distinct kind of lack of vanity in the project.
Many people have noted how there's very little makeup, no
body shame, and I've heard people try to tell you
before that it was sort of brave, um, for all
of this yet what I think you actually felt was
(14:40):
sort of relief at being able to portray someone as
they are. Is that closer to the mark?
S2 (14:47):
Like, I mean, honestly, I don't feel like I was
making any statements at all. I was just doing my job,
which is what I always try and do. But it's
so interesting, isn't it, how, you know, when we talk about, like,
whether an actress has a makeup or has makeup on
or they don't have makeup on, you know, we don't
say to male actors, wow, you were so brave for this.
You grew a beard.
S1 (15:05):
Yeah. You had.
S2 (15:06):
A paunch. Well done. You're brave. Wow, it's so brave.
We don't say that to the men. Why the heck
do we say it to the women? It drives me
completely nuts. I was being like Lee. You know, I
was trying to be as free with myself as and
as as comfortable with myself as she was with herself. Um,
(15:27):
and and just trying to honor who she was and,
and what she lived through.
S1 (15:48):
I've heard that you've always been interested in photography, and
for the film you actually learned how to use the
Rolleiflex camera, just as Lee Miller had used for listeners.
That's one of those old timey cameras you sort of
hold at the level of the waist or the stomach
and kind of look down at the the lens plate.
(16:08):
Did you take actual photos with it? Do you do
you still do you tool around with photography?
S2 (16:13):
I very much I very much did learn how to
use the royal reflex camera. And actually I worked with
a camera historian who built our replica camera for the
film and Anthony Penrose together, the three of us, they
really taught me how to use it. Tony Penrose himself
knows how to use that camera, just like his mother did.
In fact, he took it traveling with him after the war.
(16:34):
He took that camera. He was like, this is a
mighty fine camera. Off I go. Um, it was very
important that the camera didn't feel like a prop in
my hands and didn't look like a prop. It had
to feel like an extension of my arms. It had
to be present and both disappear at the same time.
So when I was winding on the film, I needed
to not be looking at it. I needed to know
how to use the light meter and pull focus and
(16:55):
all of those good things and change the film, which
is a very complicated thing to do. I was the
only person on set, actually, who knew how to change
the film on our camera. So it meant that during takes,
if I would run out of film, there's only 12
frames on one of those rolls of film. I would
just change the roll of film as we were shooting.
And yes, I was really photographing every image that we
(17:17):
are recreating of Lee Miller's own images. And a lot
of my images are actually in the film, which I
was incredibly proud of because I just had to I
just had to get really good at it. I mean,
I don't know what else to say. I just I
had to get really good at using that camera.
S1 (17:30):
Do you have any Lee Miller photographic prints up around
your house? I'm just curious to know if there was, like,
some image or not that really struck you that you
you had to have. And where does it hang?
S2 (17:42):
I do have I do have one, Actually, I do
have one. And it's it's relatively big. It's probably from
my head to my, to my waist. And it was
given to me by the friend who sold me the
table and she gave it to me. When I finished filming,
she said, look, you've got to, you just got to
have one. It's very beautifully framed and it's an image
of Li, literally. She looks like an unmade bed. She
(18:05):
looks just amazing. And she's got her arms folded like this,
and she's wearing her, um, her us, uh, her fatigues,
her her war correspondent fatigues. She's leaning back against a
wall with a row of jerry cans either side of
her legs. And it's one of my favorite images of
her ever taken. And and so that's one that I
(18:27):
do have in a frame. And it's, it's just on.
It's just on a, on a wall. No particular prominent place. Um,
but it's just there.
S1 (18:33):
Brilliant. Speaking of the lens, there's a line from early
in the film. You mentioned it earlier. I'd rather take
a picture than be one. I'm just wondering, how do
you feel about that as an actor, as someone who
sort of is a moving picture a lot of the time?
S2 (18:49):
It's so funny because I sort of see myself as
a storyteller, I suppose. And maybe that's why things like,
you know, these terms like, you know, oh, it was
brave and not wearing makeup and, you know, all these
kinds of things. They sort of they kind of like
don't really hit the sides. I'm like, well, I'm just telling.
It's telling a story. Um, I love my job. I absolutely,
(19:11):
I love acting, I really do love it. And actually,
as I get older, I find myself loving it all
the more. Um, I just really value it and feel
grateful for it. Grateful that I'm still being invited back
to the party, you know? Um, it's a it's a
pretty good feeling. Um, and there seems to be a
sort of an upswell, I think, in strong roles for
women in, in a way that is quite new and
(19:33):
hopefully is here to stay. Um, and, and making films
like Lee, I feel it does contribute to, to that
intention and that sort of movement in a way. So, no,
I feel it's an exciting time, I think, to be
part of this industry. And it's an exciting time to
be a woman getting older in this industry. I feel
(19:53):
I feel, you know, more in myself and and I
feel proud of myself. I think that's something that women
are very uncomfortable saying for some reason. But I think
we do. I think it's important to say it. I
think it's important to encourage one another and to say, yeah,
I'm proud of what I did. I'm proud of what
you did. You know, it's I think it matters a
great deal. Um, so that's sort of the time in
(20:14):
my life I'm at right now.
S1 (20:16):
You do? Of course, um, have a big role, particularly
with this film behind the camera. You're a co-producer on
the film? Um, is it true that you insisted that
it have a female director?
S2 (20:27):
Yeah. It just didn't make sense to have a male director.
You know, when it came to the point of putting
the film together and. And because I had lived with
the material by myself alongside Anthony Penrose for about five years,
even before, um, Kate Solomon, my co-producer came on board
and that was when we really started to go, okay,
now we've got a movie. When we thought about directors,
(20:50):
we it just somehow didn't sit right. That building such
a female story. You know, I always say, this is
a film. This is a film about a woman. It's
not a film about a war. And it mattered very
much that we that we really hung on to that
intention across everything. So, yes, the director being a woman,
Ellen Kuras, who I've known since Eternal Sunshine of the
(21:12):
Spotless Mind. She was was a cinematographer for years, much
revered cinematographer. But we had lots of department heads who
were women as well. And, and that just it just
mattered a great deal. And, you know, because I've been
doing this job for such a long time, very, very
fortunate to have had people who I've known since I was,
you know, 20 years old, working on films years and
(21:33):
years ago. Gemma Jackson, our set designer, I have done
a couple of films with over the years, and Ivana Primorac,
our hair and makeup designer I've known since 2008 when
I did The Reader, and just being able to pick
up the phone and say, you know, I've got this
film and, you know, if it happens, it would mean
the world if you'd come along. And they all did,
you know? And the same with the actors. You know,
I was able to make that personal outreach to everybody and,
(21:55):
and and they all said yes. And, and they stayed
with us. You know, sometimes with an independent film, you know,
other things get in the way. Other opportunities might come
along for that actor and time frame shift and what
have you. But everyone kept the space for us and,
and showed up and and it's been an incredibly rewarding
(22:15):
experience because of all of those wonderful people.
S1 (22:18):
It's so interesting that you say that about it not
being a war movie, but a movie about a woman,
because I had no real knowledge of the movie. When
I went in to see the advanced screening with my wife,
and I emerged later and was like, oh, I wasn't
expecting a Holocaust movie. And she sort of turned to
me and snapped. She was like, it wasn't just a
Holocaust movie. This was a movie about a badass bitch.
S7 (22:38):
Like, that.
S1 (22:39):
Was her immediate response. So yeah.
S2 (22:42):
Good for her.
S1 (22:42):
I understand that it was you who personally asked Andy
Samberg to take on a very important role in the
film as well, and I think most people would know
Samberg from SNL skits and goofball comedies. We we love
him in In My House as Detective Jake Peralta from
Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
S7 (23:01):
Yeah.
S1 (23:02):
What did you best know him from? And how on
earth did you see past his kind of goofy smile
to make this leap of logic with the casting?
S2 (23:12):
So having worked with Jack Black and Seth Rogen in
my life. I know, and Jim Carrey, I know that
comedians are among some of the most interesting, deep thinking
people in this industry. Um, and so I was immediately
able to see past Andy's comedic brilliance. I best knew him, actually,
(23:34):
from SNL and have always admired him. Loved the Lonely
Island in in our House as well. But here's the
truth Marion Hume, one of our co-writers, a woman who
I happen to have known since I was 16 years old.
She was editor of Australian Vogue for ten years, but
she started her career as fashion editor of the independent
(23:56):
newspaper in England. Anyway, Marion, about four years into the process,
called me up one day and she went. Winslet, have
you noticed how much like David Sherman, Andy Samberg looks?
S7 (24:08):
I said.
S2 (24:08):
Does he really? She said, yeah, come on, pull up
the two images now. So I did. And it was
absolutely uncanny. Andy Samberg is a dead ringer for the
real David Sherman. And she said, go on, ring him up.
I said, I don't know him. She said, oh, come on,
I'm sure you can get a number. Let's get in
touch with him and ask him. I said, well, I
(24:30):
don't know if he'd want to do it. You know,
he might not feel comfortable playing that kind of a role,
playing somebody not Comedic. But the truth is, the real
David Sherman had the most extraordinary twinkle. He and he,
he and Lee would, you know, the banter between the
two of them, the fun jibing and the jokes he
would crack. He was he was the wise guy all
(24:52):
the time. So there was that sort of sparkle that
he had that Andy clearly has in abundance. And when
I first spoke to him, the thing he said straight
away was I would I really would love to do this. And, and,
and I completely believed him. And then I said, well,
do you want to just read some scenes and see
(25:12):
how you feel? He was like, yeah, sure, I absolutely would.
And it was just magic right away. There was not
a hint of that. There was not a hint of
SNL or Brooklyn Nine-Nine in any of it. Um, and
he he was incredible at really, really communicating. He would say,
what did you think of that? And how do you
think I should try this next time? And just as
(25:34):
actors do all the time, we all do that all
of the time. And and he was just wonderful. And
I would often say to him, do less with your face.
Just try one where you do less with your face.
Because as a comedian, of course, their face is absolutely everything.
You know, they raise an eyebrow and it can be
hilariously funny, and he knows how to play an audience
better than anyone I know. But so sort of removing
(25:56):
that from himself was literally taking away his safety net.
And I think it was very nerve wracking for him.
He was absolutely brilliant. And we got on so well.
And he's he's a great friend. And I'm enormously grateful
that he that he wanted to do this with us.
He's just brilliant in the film.
S1 (26:12):
One last question. This this last part isn't really in
the film, but I understand it's a nice coda worth
knowing that that Lee Miller somewhat pulled herself together before
her passing, overcoming some of her troubles, taking herself away
to Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and in Paris, and
almost reinventing herself with this new creative outlet. As a
(26:33):
finishing note, if Kate Winslet had a third act and
had to go away and reinvent herself later on. What
might that look like? What would you try your hand at?
S2 (26:45):
Many different things. It would probably involve food in some way,
I have to say, because I, I am a I
am a cook myself and and love food and we
do in my family probably something to do with food,
I don't know. I don't know if I can ever
really see myself truly stepping away from the film world
and storytelling. I just love it so much. Um, I've
(27:08):
definitely done a lot more writing, been much more involved
in the writing side of things for the last probably
five years, not just with Lee. Across other things, I've
worked with some great writers who've really included me. Um,
even Mare of Easttown. I was quite included alongside Brad
Inglesby in the sort of evolving shape of that character.
So I don't know. I don't know if I'd ever
(27:28):
really be able to fully walk away from the creative
and do something totally different, but if I did, it
probably would have something to do with food. Yeah.
S7 (27:36):
Fantastic.
S1 (27:37):
All right. Thank you so much for your time, Kate.
S7 (27:40):
Thank you.
S2 (27:40):
Lovely to meet you. Thanks.
S1 (27:45):
That was Academy Award winner Kate Winslet. On another great
episode of Good Weekend Talks. Tune in every week for
more compelling conversations. Good Weekend Talks is brought to you
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Hi, I'm Conrad Marshall, host of Good Weekend Talks. After
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But for now, enjoy one of our most popular episodes
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(00:24):
I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald and
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(00:46):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak to
Kate Winslet. The Oscar winning actress is in Australia right
now promoting her new film Lee, a biopic about the
life of pioneering war correspondent Lee Miller. Miller's photography from
the front lines of the Second World War famously captured
(01:08):
the most telling and sensitive micro details within that setting,
in a way that perhaps only a woman could. Her
images take viewers into the London Blitz, the liberation of
Paris and the atrocities of Nazi concentration camps in Buchenwald
and Dachau. Winslet is, of course, the star of films
(01:29):
and TV shows, from Titanic to Mare of Easttown, and
she joins me today from a hotel room in Sydney. Welcome, Kate.
S2 (01:38):
Thank you for having me.
S1 (01:40):
It's our pleasure. First off, I just wanted to confirm something.
I believe you have Lee Miller's kitchen table in your home.
How did that happen?
S2 (01:50):
I, I have, yes, I do. I have a table
that was owned in the Penrose holiday home, and when
Lee Miller and Roland Penrose were newly lovers, they would
spend a great deal of time in this home. And
Lee was an incredible cook. And that was the kitchen table.
(02:12):
And she would cook the food and they would eat
the food, and they would have these wonderful sort of
hedonistic summers of love with their surrealist friends all around them. And, uh,
and yeah, some friends of mine work for an auction house.
And the table came in and they called me and
they said, Kate, you've got to get this table and
told me the story behind it. And I just couldn't
(02:32):
believe it. And so I did get the table. And
that was back in 2015. And that was the beginning
of the whole journey for me. I just sat at
this table and I thought, wow. Lee Miller sat at
this table too. Why hasn't anyone made a film about her?
And that was really the beginning for me.
S1 (02:48):
Fantastic. I have to admit, I was largely ignorant of
Lee Miller before seeing your film. I know there was
a book, The Lives of Lee Miller, which was published
in 1999, almost a quarter of a century ago. But
there's something there's a little bit more cut through with movies.
Often it made me think of watching Hidden Figures, that
movie about a group of female African American mathematicians who
(03:12):
work with NASA on the on the space program. I
was wondering, what is it that you think makes movies
such a great vehicle for recognition or celebration of underappreciated figures?
S2 (03:26):
It's such a brilliant thing to to talk about. It
really is. I mean, with moviemaking, even extraordinary television, you know,
I mean, I'm a huge fan of being part of
episodic television for these wonderful streamers now as well. But
you do have the power to not just entertain people,
(03:46):
but to sometimes educate them on who it was, who
really did that extraordinary thing that you may or may
not necessarily know about, but even discovering somebody, perhaps for
the first time. Like maybe it sounds like you have
done with Lee Miller, but discovering them for who they
really were and what I found in putting the film
together and the five years I spent developing it before
(04:09):
we even had a movie that was ready to go.
I learned that so many women of historical significance were
often defined through the male gaze, or they had these
labels slapped on them. You know, Lee Miller was known
for having been this former cover girl, ex-lover and muse
of man Ray. That term muse, you know, it's very
(04:31):
reductive in a way, you know, almost infantilizing. And Lee
was a model for a tiny sliver of her life
in her 20s, and she hated being a model. She
couldn't wait to walk away from it and very famously said,
I'd rather take a picture than be one. She'd always
loved photography. She'd learned it from her father as a child.
It was something she'd always done, was very comfortable with
a camera, and that was what she wanted to do
(04:53):
with her life and having the courage that she had
to go to war as a woman to get the
right to go to get those permissions was incredibly tough.
No women were being allowed into those conflict zones, but
Lee just wouldn't take no for an answer. And this
decade of her life that we cover in the film,
for me, was when Lee really became Lee. She went
(05:15):
to war as a flawed, complicated, middle aged woman, and
she did it to bear witness, to be that visual
voice for the innocent victims of conflict. And when you
think about photojournalism today and what those individuals do to
capture those searing, arresting, sometimes terrifying images, it is the
most phenomenally selfless and brave job in order to reveal
(05:42):
the truth to those of us at home who have
no idea what's going on. And Lee was one of
those pioneering people who did that as a woman, and
it was just a story that I just felt it
really had to be told.
S3 (05:57):
It happened so slowly. Yeah. Kind of overnight. We woke
up one morning and Europe was at war.
S4 (06:05):
Only non-military assets for women.
S3 (06:08):
I just want to do my part. Why should the
men get to decide what that is? I'm heading to
the front. Ready to go?
S5 (06:17):
That's not what I thought you were gonna say.
S1 (06:20):
Watching this film in this moment, it's impossible. For at
least where I see it, not to reflect on the
journalists that have been killed in the past year during
the Israel-Gaza war. Recent reports suggest something like 128 media
workers have died, the vast majority of them Palestinian. And
that doesn't seem to have created that much of a
(06:42):
stir at all. Does that surprise you in this day
and age?
S6 (06:46):
Um.
S2 (06:48):
So many things surprise me in this day and age.
You know, I when I was putting Lee Miller together,
I was very, very fortunate to have a former female
photojournalist who now covers security for Reuters and who shall
remain nameless out of respect for her. She helped me
(07:08):
enormously in coming to understand what that job is like
for a woman now, today, and the sheer determination to
bear witness and never look away took my breath away
and still does. And that's why I wanted to play
(07:29):
this role, because Lee's ability to go out into the
world against all odds and do something to make a difference,
to tell those stories, to make sure that the victims
of conflict stories were upheld and told and never forgotten.
And to do that at a time when there was
no safety there, you know, there was no run for cover,
(07:53):
there was no get out of jail free card and
she carried on going. She didn't go home. She didn't
say this is too much. She stayed and she saw
it all through. And what she did was just extraordinary
and and admirable. And I bow down to anyone who
does that job.
S1 (08:12):
There are so many moments in the film that you
highlight how Miller bumped directly, kind of up against the patriarchy,
and punched on through to do what she wanted and
needed to do. I'm just wondering when you're finished with
a role like this, do you emerge with a little
bit of that same sort of chutzpah that she had?
(08:34):
Do you take a little bit of that with you
into your life, after you've sort of been that character
for a while?
S2 (08:41):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, you do. And because the film,
because the film was developed over a number of years,
I was in a position where I had full and
complete access to the archive, which exists in in the UK,
and it's an internationally renowned art archive run by members
(09:04):
of Lee's family. Her granddaughter Amy and her son Antony Penrose,
who was a very important collaborator for me in putting
the film together. But because I had that level of
access and that level of trust, I was able to
be so immersed in not just her photographs, but in
in her life. Personal diaries, letters between her and Rowland,
(09:27):
extensive letters between her and Audrey Withers, which really gave
me access to a side of her that I wouldn't
have otherwise had. That very female relationship that she had
with Audrey. That was quite unusual at the time, and
she stayed very close friends with Audrey Withers until until
Lee passed away in 1977.
S1 (09:48):
Audrey Withers being the the editor of Vogue.
S2 (09:51):
Exactly. Audrey Withers, being the editor at the time of
British Vogue, and Audrey Withers, played by Andrea Riseborough, so
brilliantly in our film. She was an extraordinary woman because
she actually had wanted to be a writer. She was
a very left leaning individual and she she really championed
other women. And Lee had never really written before. And
(10:12):
going and being a photographer in the way that she was,
that was one thing. But then having to really dig
in and write about what she was witnessing was quite
another thing. And Lee was really nervous of that. She
didn't know if she was going to be capable of
doing it at all. And in the letters between Lee
and Audrey, Lee so often says to come on, dear girl,
you can do it. We're cheering for you back home.
(10:34):
You've got it in you just keep going. And then
Audrey would. Lee would write back to her and say, oh,
thank you so much. And by the way, would you
mind just sending me a tin of Ovaltine, some new earplugs,
and possibly a couple of spare pairs of pantyhose, because
I've got runners all through mine. And then Audrey would
send her these amazing care packages. And so it was
really all there. And so, yeah, loads of it stayed
(10:57):
with me. The essence of who Lee Miller was this
incredibly inspiring woman and how she lived her life, um,
with just integrity and compassion and power and resilience. You know, I'm,
I try and live my life by that, and my
sisters do and my friends do. And it just reinforced
for me the importance of that, especially, I think, in
(11:18):
the world we live in today and how we want
to raise our daughters. Um, and yeah, so a lot
of of who Lee was has definitely stayed with me.
S1 (11:26):
I've read about the amount of time that you spent
going through those archives that the they sort of expected
you to turn up and read through some material for
a little while and then leave. But you were a
constant visitor, sort of burrowing in to learn by, uh, osmosis. Um,
you also said at some point that you, you felt
(11:48):
it was maybe the most traumatic role that you'd ever had,
that it left an imprint on you. Was that to
do with what we now assume was her depression and
PTSD and struggles with alcohol after the war? What was
the tough part?
S2 (12:05):
It was it was all tough. It was all tough
putting the film together, putting the financing together, putting the
crew together, the cast, all of it. It was absolutely wonderful.
But every single part of it was was absolutely tough.
But as, as as an actor and now filmmaker, in
(12:25):
having produced the film as well, you know, sometimes when
you're recreating scenes of, of a historical nature that you
absolutely know happened and you're trying to do that in
the most authentic way you possibly can, whilst you know
that what you're doing isn't real, you absolutely know that
it was real, right? And the responsibility that comes with
(12:48):
that is, is is enormous. And especially when you have
family members who are still alive and for whom this
story is incredibly important and means so much to Anthony Penrose,
Lee's son, that the film has now been made. I mean,
I tried to make it for it's now nine years and,
and and Anthony had been waiting something like 35 years
(13:11):
to see this film get made, and many people had
tried before and, and and hadn't done it. Um, so
when you're recreating scenes, entering Dachau concentration camp, discovering the
train carriages, um, and also working through Lee's very traumatic
childhood where something horrific had happened to her, a deeply
(13:34):
buried secret that she was told never to tell. Like
so many women, um, she refused to allow that thing
to define who she was. But it did give her
this very powerful streak of injustice that literally vibrated inside her,
I feel throughout her entire adult life. So recreating that
(13:56):
level of intensity and trauma and truth. Yeah, it's really,
you know, it is very difficult because. But you have
to do it if you want people to believe what
it is that you're doing, you have to do it.
And it just mattered to me to do the best
job I possibly could and to honor who she was
for her son, Anthony Penrose's sake, if for no other
reason other than that. Actually, it was very important to
(14:17):
me that he was happy.
S1 (14:18):
It did have a very truthful and sort of unvarnished feel.
There's a distinct kind of lack of vanity in the project.
Many people have noted how there's very little makeup, no
body shame, and I've heard people try to tell you
before that it was sort of brave, um, for all
of this yet what I think you actually felt was
(14:40):
sort of relief at being able to portray someone as
they are. Is that closer to the mark?
S2 (14:47):
Like, I mean, honestly, I don't feel like I was
making any statements at all. I was just doing my job,
which is what I always try and do. But it's
so interesting, isn't it, how, you know, when we talk about, like,
whether an actress has a makeup or has makeup on
or they don't have makeup on, you know, we don't
say to male actors, wow, you were so brave for this.
You grew a beard.
S1 (15:05):
Yeah. You had.
S2 (15:06):
A paunch. Well done. You're brave. Wow, it's so brave.
We don't say that to the men. Why the heck
do we say it to the women? It drives me
completely nuts. I was being like Lee. You know, I
was trying to be as free with myself as and
as as comfortable with myself as she was with herself. Um,
(15:27):
and and just trying to honor who she was and,
and what she lived through.
S1 (15:48):
I've heard that you've always been interested in photography, and
for the film you actually learned how to use the
Rolleiflex camera, just as Lee Miller had used for listeners.
That's one of those old timey cameras you sort of
hold at the level of the waist or the stomach
and kind of look down at the the lens plate.
(16:08):
Did you take actual photos with it? Do you do
you still do you tool around with photography?
S2 (16:13):
I very much I very much did learn how to
use the royal reflex camera. And actually I worked with
a camera historian who built our replica camera for the
film and Anthony Penrose together, the three of us, they
really taught me how to use it. Tony Penrose himself
knows how to use that camera, just like his mother did.
In fact, he took it traveling with him after the war.
(16:34):
He took that camera. He was like, this is a
mighty fine camera. Off I go. Um, it was very
important that the camera didn't feel like a prop in
my hands and didn't look like a prop. It had
to feel like an extension of my arms. It had
to be present and both disappear at the same time.
So when I was winding on the film, I needed
to not be looking at it. I needed to know
how to use the light meter and pull focus and
(16:55):
all of those good things and change the film, which
is a very complicated thing to do. I was the
only person on set, actually, who knew how to change
the film on our camera. So it meant that during takes,
if I would run out of film, there's only 12
frames on one of those rolls of film. I would
just change the roll of film as we were shooting.
And yes, I was really photographing every image that we
(17:17):
are recreating of Lee Miller's own images. And a lot
of my images are actually in the film, which I
was incredibly proud of because I just had to I
just had to get really good at it. I mean,
I don't know what else to say. I just I
had to get really good at using that camera.
S1 (17:30):
Do you have any Lee Miller photographic prints up around
your house? I'm just curious to know if there was, like,
some image or not that really struck you that you
you had to have. And where does it hang?
S2 (17:42):
I do have I do have one, Actually, I do
have one. And it's it's relatively big. It's probably from
my head to my, to my waist. And it was
given to me by the friend who sold me the
table and she gave it to me. When I finished filming,
she said, look, you've got to, you just got to
have one. It's very beautifully framed and it's an image
of Li, literally. She looks like an unmade bed. She
(18:05):
looks just amazing. And she's got her arms folded like this,
and she's wearing her, um, her us, uh, her fatigues,
her her war correspondent fatigues. She's leaning back against a
wall with a row of jerry cans either side of
her legs. And it's one of my favorite images of
her ever taken. And and so that's one that I
(18:27):
do have in a frame. And it's, it's just on.
It's just on a, on a wall. No particular prominent place. Um,
but it's just there.
S1 (18:33):
Brilliant. Speaking of the lens, there's a line from early
in the film. You mentioned it earlier. I'd rather take
a picture than be one. I'm just wondering, how do
you feel about that as an actor, as someone who
sort of is a moving picture a lot of the time?
S2 (18:49):
It's so funny because I sort of see myself as
a storyteller, I suppose. And maybe that's why things like,
you know, these terms like, you know, oh, it was
brave and not wearing makeup and, you know, all these
kinds of things. They sort of they kind of like
don't really hit the sides. I'm like, well, I'm just telling.
It's telling a story. Um, I love my job. I absolutely,
(19:11):
I love acting, I really do love it. And actually,
as I get older, I find myself loving it all
the more. Um, I just really value it and feel
grateful for it. Grateful that I'm still being invited back
to the party, you know? Um, it's a it's a
pretty good feeling. Um, and there seems to be a
sort of an upswell, I think, in strong roles for
women in, in a way that is quite new and
(19:33):
hopefully is here to stay. Um, and, and making films
like Lee, I feel it does contribute to, to that
intention and that sort of movement in a way. So, no,
I feel it's an exciting time, I think, to be
part of this industry. And it's an exciting time to
be a woman getting older in this industry. I feel
(19:53):
I feel, you know, more in myself and and I
feel proud of myself. I think that's something that women
are very uncomfortable saying for some reason. But I think
we do. I think it's important to say it. I
think it's important to encourage one another and to say, yeah,
I'm proud of what I did. I'm proud of what
you did. You know, it's I think it matters a
great deal. Um, so that's sort of the time in
(20:14):
my life I'm at right now.
S1 (20:16):
You do? Of course, um, have a big role, particularly
with this film behind the camera. You're a co-producer on
the film? Um, is it true that you insisted that
it have a female director?
S2 (20:27):
Yeah. It just didn't make sense to have a male director.
You know, when it came to the point of putting
the film together and. And because I had lived with
the material by myself alongside Anthony Penrose for about five years,
even before, um, Kate Solomon, my co-producer came on board
and that was when we really started to go, okay,
now we've got a movie. When we thought about directors,
(20:50):
we it just somehow didn't sit right. That building such
a female story. You know, I always say, this is
a film. This is a film about a woman. It's
not a film about a war. And it mattered very
much that we that we really hung on to that
intention across everything. So, yes, the director being a woman,
Ellen Kuras, who I've known since Eternal Sunshine of the
(21:12):
Spotless Mind. She was was a cinematographer for years, much
revered cinematographer. But we had lots of department heads who
were women as well. And, and that just it just
mattered a great deal. And, you know, because I've been
doing this job for such a long time, very, very
fortunate to have had people who I've known since I was,
you know, 20 years old, working on films years and
(21:33):
years ago. Gemma Jackson, our set designer, I have done
a couple of films with over the years, and Ivana Primorac,
our hair and makeup designer I've known since 2008 when
I did The Reader, and just being able to pick
up the phone and say, you know, I've got this
film and, you know, if it happens, it would mean
the world if you'd come along. And they all did,
you know? And the same with the actors. You know,
I was able to make that personal outreach to everybody and,
(21:55):
and and they all said yes. And, and they stayed
with us. You know, sometimes with an independent film, you know,
other things get in the way. Other opportunities might come
along for that actor and time frame shift and what
have you. But everyone kept the space for us and,
and showed up and and it's been an incredibly rewarding
(22:15):
experience because of all of those wonderful people.
S1 (22:18):
It's so interesting that you say that about it not
being a war movie, but a movie about a woman,
because I had no real knowledge of the movie. When
I went in to see the advanced screening with my wife,
and I emerged later and was like, oh, I wasn't
expecting a Holocaust movie. And she sort of turned to
me and snapped. She was like, it wasn't just a
Holocaust movie. This was a movie about a badass bitch.
S7 (22:38):
Like, that.
S1 (22:39):
Was her immediate response. So yeah.
S2 (22:42):
Good for her.
S1 (22:42):
I understand that it was you who personally asked Andy
Samberg to take on a very important role in the
film as well, and I think most people would know
Samberg from SNL skits and goofball comedies. We we love
him in In My House as Detective Jake Peralta from
Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
S7 (23:01):
Yeah.
S1 (23:02):
What did you best know him from? And how on
earth did you see past his kind of goofy smile
to make this leap of logic with the casting?
S2 (23:12):
So having worked with Jack Black and Seth Rogen in
my life. I know, and Jim Carrey, I know that
comedians are among some of the most interesting, deep thinking
people in this industry. Um, and so I was immediately
able to see past Andy's comedic brilliance. I best knew him, actually,
(23:34):
from SNL and have always admired him. Loved the Lonely
Island in in our House as well. But here's the
truth Marion Hume, one of our co-writers, a woman who
I happen to have known since I was 16 years old.
She was editor of Australian Vogue for ten years, but
she started her career as fashion editor of the independent
(23:56):
newspaper in England. Anyway, Marion, about four years into the process,
called me up one day and she went. Winslet, have
you noticed how much like David Sherman, Andy Samberg looks?
S7 (24:08):
I said.
S2 (24:08):
Does he really? She said, yeah, come on, pull up
the two images now. So I did. And it was
absolutely uncanny. Andy Samberg is a dead ringer for the
real David Sherman. And she said, go on, ring him up.
I said, I don't know him. She said, oh, come on,
I'm sure you can get a number. Let's get in
touch with him and ask him. I said, well, I
(24:30):
don't know if he'd want to do it. You know,
he might not feel comfortable playing that kind of a role,
playing somebody not Comedic. But the truth is, the real
David Sherman had the most extraordinary twinkle. He and he,
he and Lee would, you know, the banter between the
two of them, the fun jibing and the jokes he
would crack. He was he was the wise guy all
(24:52):
the time. So there was that sort of sparkle that
he had that Andy clearly has in abundance. And when
I first spoke to him, the thing he said straight
away was I would I really would love to do this. And, and,
and I completely believed him. And then I said, well,
do you want to just read some scenes and see
(25:12):
how you feel? He was like, yeah, sure, I absolutely would.
And it was just magic right away. There was not
a hint of that. There was not a hint of
SNL or Brooklyn Nine-Nine in any of it. Um, and
he he was incredible at really, really communicating. He would say,
what did you think of that? And how do you
think I should try this next time? And just as
(25:34):
actors do all the time, we all do that all
of the time. And and he was just wonderful. And
I would often say to him, do less with your face.
Just try one where you do less with your face.
Because as a comedian, of course, their face is absolutely everything.
You know, they raise an eyebrow and it can be
hilariously funny, and he knows how to play an audience
better than anyone I know. But so sort of removing
(25:56):
that from himself was literally taking away his safety net.
And I think it was very nerve wracking for him.
He was absolutely brilliant. And we got on so well.
And he's he's a great friend. And I'm enormously grateful
that he that he wanted to do this with us.
He's just brilliant in the film.
S1 (26:12):
One last question. This this last part isn't really in
the film, but I understand it's a nice coda worth
knowing that that Lee Miller somewhat pulled herself together before
her passing, overcoming some of her troubles, taking herself away
to Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and in Paris, and
almost reinventing herself with this new creative outlet. As a
(26:33):
finishing note, if Kate Winslet had a third act and
had to go away and reinvent herself later on. What
might that look like? What would you try your hand at?
S2 (26:45):
Many different things. It would probably involve food in some way,
I have to say, because I, I am a I
am a cook myself and and love food and we
do in my family probably something to do with food,
I don't know. I don't know if I can ever
really see myself truly stepping away from the film world
and storytelling. I just love it so much. Um, I've
(27:08):
definitely done a lot more writing, been much more involved
in the writing side of things for the last probably
five years, not just with Lee. Across other things, I've
worked with some great writers who've really included me. Um,
even Mare of Easttown. I was quite included alongside Brad
Inglesby in the sort of evolving shape of that character.
So I don't know. I don't know if I'd ever
(27:28):
really be able to fully walk away from the creative
and do something totally different, but if I did, it
probably would have something to do with food. Yeah.
S7 (27:36):
Fantastic.
S1 (27:37):
All right. Thank you so much for your time, Kate.
S7 (27:40):
Thank you.
S2 (27:40):
Lovely to meet you. Thanks.
S1 (27:45):
That was Academy Award winner Kate Winslet. On another great
episode of Good Weekend Talks. Tune in every week for
more compelling conversations. Good Weekend Talks is brought to you
by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Subscriptions power
our newsrooms to support independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning
(28:05):
Herald or The Age? And if you enjoyed this episode,
please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get
your podcasts. This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced
by Jie Wong. Technical assistance from Cormac Lally. Editing from
Conrad Marshall. Tom McKendrick is head of audio and Katrina
(28:26):
Strickland is the editor of Good Weekend.
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