LOS ANGELES — Kate Winslet felt a deep connection to her role as the real-life World War Two photographer Elizabeth “Lee” Miller in the film “Lee.” “I found a lot of parallels between myself and her, I think in terms of the determination that she had and in terms of the ability she had to keep going and not taking no for an answer,” said Winslet, who co-produced the film. The “Titanic” actor recalled a time during the development of the film when she was sitting at her kitchen table crying as she wondered whether she was capable of portraying Miller in the film.
However, each moment of doubt became an opportunity for her to feel even closer to the photojournalist. “I would think to myself, ‘OK, what would Lee do?,’” she added during a Zoom interview. After many years of development for the British biographical drama film directed by Ellen Kuras, “Lee” will arrive in theaters on Friday, distributed by Roadside Attractions.
Miller was an American model in New York who traded posing in front of the camera for taking photos of the war for Vogue magazine. She covered the Blitz, the 1940s German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom , nurses at an army base in Oxford, and even one of the first depictions of the military using napalm. Her images of the war and the aftermath of the concentration camps, and being a boundary-breaking female war correspondent eventually solidified Miller’s place in history after the photojournalist’s work resurfac.
