The first official image of Kate Winslet as Lee Miller, from Sky Original Film ‘Lee’ has been released.
The image, shot during filming on location in Croatia, shows Winslet as the pioneering American war correspondent and photographer who covered WWII in Europe for British Vogue.
‘Lee’ is currently filming and it’s the directorial debut from acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kuras. The film is not a biopic, instead it explores the most significant decade of Lee Miller’s life. As a middle-aged woman, she refused to be remembered as a model and male artists’ muse.
Lee Miller defied the expectations and rules of the time and travelled to Europe to report from the frontline. There, in part as a reaction to her own well-hidden trauma, she used her Rolleiflex camera to give a voice to the voiceless. What Lee captured on film in Dachau and throughout Europe was shocking and horrific.
Her photographs of the war, its victims and its consequences remain among the most significant and historically important of the second world war. She changed war photography forever, but Lee paid an enormous personal price for what she witnessed and the stories she fought to tell.
Kate Winslet, Producer says, “To me, she was a life force to be reckoned with, so much more than an object of attention from famous men with whom she is associated. This photographer, writer, reporter, did everything she did with love, lust, and courage, and is an inspiration of what you can achieve, and what you can bear, if you dare to take life firmly by the hands and live it at full throttle.”
Julia Stuart, Director of Original Film at Sky says, “Sky is honoured to bring Lee Miller’s wartime journey to screens across the UK. Lee Miller was an utterly unstoppable woman, whose timeless story is as relevant now as it was in her day, and there is no one better suited to that role than the masterful Kate Winslet.”
Joining Winslet is US actor Andy Samberg playing Life Magazine photographer David E. Scherman; Alexander Skarsgård playing English Surrealist painter, photographer, poet and biographer Roland Penrose; Marion Cotillard playing Solange D’Ayen, the fashion director of French Vogue and close friend of Miller’s; Josh O’Connor playing Tony, a young journalist and Andrea Riseborough playing British Vogue Editor Audrey Withers.
Additional cast members include Noemie Merlant (‘Tar’, ‘The Portrait of a Lady on Fire’) playing Nusch Eluard; Arinzé Kene (‘Been So Long’, ‘Misty’) playing Major Jonesy; Vincent Colombe (‘Revenge’) playing Paul Eluard, Patrick Mille (‘Bad Girl’) playing Jean D’Ayen; Samuel Barnett (‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’) playing Cecil Beaton and Zita Hanrot (‘Paul Sanchez Is Back!’) playing Ady Fidelin.
