Kate Winslet breaks down 8-year PASSION PROJECT with Andy Samberg and Alexander Skarsgård

Intro going as a woman to the front line cutting through the red tape and documenting the atrocities of the Nazi regime I learned a lot just reading the script and spending time with Kate how did it really feel to get into Hitler's bath even when I wanted to look Lee teaser trailer away I knew I couldn't there are different kinds of wounds not just the ones you can see I know this was a real passion project for you yes and so I guess I wonder if you What sparked Kate Winslet's passion for Lee Miller could just start by telling us how you first became familiar with the work of Lee Miller and what was it originally that kind of spark the idea to to make this this film about her life so I I knew who Lee Miller was um and I I was familiar with a lot of her photographic work uh but I was also very aware of how almost not underrated but um unexplored the most significant decade of her life truly was she had always been viewed through the male gaze she was she's written about as having been the former Muse of Man Ray ex Covergirl former model these kind of slightly patronizing almost infantilizing labels that were slapped on her and that was connected to a sliver of her life in her 20s and actually she lived many many versions of her life Le she was an incredible woman very powerful really passionate and Brilliant as a photographer and so I bought a table at auction that had existed in a home where Lee and Roland Penrose spent a lot of their courtship with many of the other surrealists experiencing these kind of hedonistic Summers of love and man R was there and Paul eloir and Max Ernst and Lee and Roland and they would have these meals around this huge table and I bought this table and it came to my house and I sat there and I thought Lee Miller why is why is no one made a film of about her cut to 9 years later and I now know probably why no one's made a film about Lee Miller because it was incredibly hard to really Define that period of her life that we wanted to talk about that mattered to me the most and I think that celebrates the phenomenal work she did in going as a woman to the front line cutting through the red tape and documenting the atrocities of the Nazi regime for the female readers of Vogue and she just didn't believe in hiding the truth and she would stop at nothing until she had found it I'm interested in the you know the framing device of the film is obviously Lee Miller being interviewed and that kind of made me What would you have asked Lee Miller? think if you had had the chance to ask Lee Miller one question what what would you think that would have been if you could have asked her one thing someone asked me this the other day and I was a little bit lost for words because I have there are so many things I think I'd want to ask her um I think I would probably ask her how did it really feel to get into Hitler's bath because there's a very famous image of her that was taken by her friend Davey Sherman who was a photographer for Life Magazine at the time and the two of them were kind of joined at the hip um during the war and they bribed their way way into Hitler's apartment Hitler had vanished at that point he he escaped his bunker in Berlin it was on the day of the liberation of daau and Lee and Davey had been present in dhau that morning they were among the first people there and they went to Munich and she knew where his apartment was she got her way in there there were already there was another regiment already in there pretty much having a party and she realized that there was a bathroom and she went in and she turned on the tap realized there was hot water they hadn't touched hot water for 6 weeks they hadn't washed they hadn't even changed their clothes so of course she got in the bath and then she of course realized okay that's a scoop Davey get in here take a photograph of me and Davey also was photographed in the bath too and I just think I would ask her how did that really feel like what was going through your mind she was spectacularly Brave Andy Samberg and Alexander Skarsgård learning on set [Laughter] yes I don't know I don't have a good answer to that uh I don't I don't know yeah I do maybe uh what's your favorite photograph you ever took do you have answer what yeah was I would I would I would ask her what's the greatest photograph uh you ever took oh do yoube you can edit out his answer and just give me that do you just like onet you do have a favorite uh photograph of of Lee Miller um that you either for that you knew before or that you kind discovered while making the film I for me I would say it's hard to say like a favorite because so many of them are so harrowing but uh certainly found many of them very affecting you know sort of capturing the horrors of War what about you I mean the I think obviously the iconic one of her that that David Sherman took of her in the bathtub uh was I'm embarrassed to say but I didn't know that much about Lee Miller before getting involved this project I knew that she was uh I knew I'd seen that iconic photographed in some of the the the the shots from ducka um but I wasn't that familiar with her incredible life story and uh um so it was really I learned a lot just reading the script and spending time with Kate who'd been working on this for I think it was like eight years in development uh so just to be immersed in that and and spending time with her and and Ellen uh was just so educational and interesting and fascinating uh and it was kind of mindboggling once I started to kind of dive into that world that this story hadn't been told before uh because what an extraordinary human being and photographer she was and how groundbreaking her work was um but yeah so but I didn't know much about her before this and and you mentioned that eight years that Kate had spent kind of developing this project and and it really was it seems like a passion project for her how did that kind of come across to you on set did was there any kind of particular moments where you could just see how passionate Kate winet was about this this film I would there were moments where she would talk about things from Lee's past as if we all knew them because I think she was so immersed in it that she just assumed everyone was where she was at with the eight years of AC crewing knowledge about her and um but it was nice because it put you in this state of mind of like oh yeah we better know it all uh because going to be referencing it throughout it it was cool it was cool I mean I think when you know the person you're working with and who's sort of driving the project cares that much about it it g gets you all the more engaged uh and and passionate about it and and sort of step with them yeah and and not only Lee Miller she knew everyone Lee Miller EV ever met basically knew everything about all these characters so that was just a kind of a wealth of knowledge and and to be able to uh to spend time with Kate and her talking about role in my character and and the the relationship between between Lee and him um she spent a lot of time with with Anthony Penrose the the um their son um and it was just in in research in doing research there was so much um Andrea Riseborough on feeling Kate's passion on set uh that she gave me uh that I wouldn't have been able to find anywhere else because again uh eight years of knowledge of the whole world that whole era was was incredibly valuable to me if you've begun to have a very deep relationship with a story that you're telling which is absolutely what Kate had with Lee Miller and and really Lee's entire family in a sense but a legacy um there need there need be no proof of of passion it's just evident you know by the time I came to this project Kate was seven years kneed deep and um had spent a lot of time with very very difficult images and um had had really explored the nooks and crannies of how Lee was possibly unable to get over what she'd seen um and and her self medication and um through alcohol and um and difficult relationships with with a family who loved her very dearly um she was so deep in that any when you when you meet somebody at that moment it is so inspiring and and and I feel a kinship and and I and I wanted to get as you know deep as I could with Audrey and so and that was actually very possible because Audrey Audrey Withers the editor of um British fog during the second world war was um an interesting character she's in a very conservative world she was a stor socialist she was uh hugely interested in literature and uh wanted very much to be a writer one of the only platforms it was able to do you were able to do that as a woman at the time was Vogue was providing that platform for young women coming out of off enox bridge it was very imbalanced you know in terms of um uh Audrey was fortunate enough to have two academic parents and so she was able to have a voice and it was very different for a workingclass woman to even come near to having a voice or a workingclass man at the time but she really was able to give voice to Lee because she saw in Lee an extraordinary journalist an extraordinary photojournalist an extraordinary writer who was able to convey the horrors of something so far away um not just with Integrity but with with real Beauty you know um Lee was an extraordinary writer yeah and so it was a it was a great privilege to be able to play that part and and I found Audrey uh just fascinating yeah I'm was was really interested in the you know after all these these images have been captured there was you know it was difficult to get them published and there is that scene where you know Lee is on you know she flicks through the magazine and she doesn't see them there can you kind of understand why there was a reluctance why why do you think that was to kind of show the world these these horrible you know horrible atrocities and show the world these images well we know historically um so it was a decision made by the ministry here in Britain that that would be the inappropriate thing to do when everybody was trying to recover from the war effort and it was a decision that was taken out of Audrey's hands and that she regretted I think until she you know she regretted for the rest of her life um she did manage to get them printed an American Vogue but really that was a horrible horrible fracturing moment for Audrey and Lee's relationship and they ultimately came through it um she was heartbroken that that that couldn't happen and certainly the last thing that she wanted was then F Lee to destroy everything that she' so uh really bravely lived through and and immortalized on film Staying true to history well for us this was always a film about woman and her own internal war and lesser film about war um and we were very much led by the images that she took and we we tried to be as truthful to those images in our Recreation of them and our imagining of the scenarios around the circumstances that led her to those images that she captured um we just wanted to treat everything with as much uh compassion and respect as as she clearly did and we do know that she was a phenomenally kind individual and part of her skill was working with that riflex camera that I had to get extremely good at using had to practically do it with my eyes closed but the thing that's interesting about the riflex camera is it doesn't sit in front of the eye so you don't hold it up and say hey look over here and then the subject would feel as though they are posing and therefore becom self-conscious the riflex hangs around the neck and it actually sits almost just slightly lower than the heart in front of the stomach actually and so what that did for Lee was it gave her the opportunity to form connections with people she could really talk to people and say hey tell me your story and so she would get very very raw candid images she was really one of the early reportage photographers I guess and uh we just Tred to stay as truthful to her exact images as we possibly could and very much lent on those images to propel us through our narrative [Music]