Kate Winslet says photographer Lee Miller ‘faced so many challenges’

Kate Winslet has said photographer Lee Miller, who she plays in a new biopic, “faced so many challenges” as a woman in war photography.

The 48-year-old actress was speaking to the PA news agency at the London premiere of Lee at the Odeon Luxe in Leicester Square on Tuesday.

Lee follows Miller’s life, from her beginnings as a fashion model to eventually working as a war photographer for Vogue magazine during the Second World War.

Winslet told PA: “Lee faced so many challenges. I mean, first of all, she was doing a job that was largely reserved for men.

“So she’s told repeatedly, no, you can’t go, they won’t send women, no women in the press briefing, we don’t let women into combat. I mean it was absolutely endless.

“Even at the point that she got her US war accreditation, and was out there in France already, trying to do her job, she still kept being told no.

“So I think she was one of those early reportage photographers who really knew about searching for the truth, revealing the truth, and the way in which she photographed was exceptional.

“She didn’t use a camera that you hold up to your eye, the Rolleiflex sits somewhere between the heart and the stomach, and by doing that, she was able to form a connection with people.

“So it meant that she could actually have conversations and form connections with people, and also look around her all the time.

“She constantly had her eye on what was the next best scoop and trying to be the first one to get that scoop, and so often she was, she was unbelievable.”

Lee will be released in the UK on September 13, and also features Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgard and Andrea Riseborough.