First look: Kate Winslet stars as Lee Miller in Sky biopic
David Farnor | On 02, Nov 2022
Kate Winslet is teaming up with Sky to bring to life the true story of war photographer Lee Miller, and a new image gives us a first look at her in action.
Lee stars Winslet as the pioneering American war correspondent and photographer who covered WWII in Europe for British Vogue. The film 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, who also produces the film, 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, adds: “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 are Andy Samberg as Life Magazine photographer David E. Scherman, Alexander Skarsgård as English Surrealist painter, photographer, poet and biographer Roland Penrose, and Marion Cotillard as Solange D’Ayen, the fashion director of French Vogue and close friend of Miller’s. Josh O’Connor will also play Tony, a young journalist, and Andrea Riseborough will play 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.
The directorial debut of cinematographer Ellen Kuras, the project is being filmed on location in Croatia.