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00:00Did you think you ever do, I'm sure they ask you this all the time because EGOT is there
00:07and you have the E and you've got the G, you've got a Grammy, and you've got the O, you need
00:14So I have an EGOT is what you're telling me.
00:17You have an EGOT.
00:18I'm an EGOT.
00:19Where'd you go?
00:20What the hell happened?
00:21Here, drink this.
00:39You're a good guy, Davey.
01:02You're one of the good ones.
01:03Yeah, I'm alright.
01:04There's bad things that do happen, you know.
01:17Bad things do happen to some of us girls.
01:24Leigh, honey, what do you mean by that?
01:39You know what?
01:40We can talk about it later.
01:41Let's get you to bed, okay?
01:42Lean back.
01:43There you go.
01:44There you go.
01:46Welcome to the actor's side today, oh my God.
01:59We could sit here all day and just talk about all the awards she's won.
02:03And for Oscars and Golden Globes and Emmys and on and on, Grammys even.
02:09It's amazing.
02:10Her new film, Leigh, is extraordinary in a career full of extraordinary movies.
02:17Please welcome Kate Winslet.
02:19Welcome to the actor's side.
02:20Thank you, Pete.
02:21Thank you very much.
02:23And congratulations on Leigh.
02:26It's really good.
02:27We're going to talk about that.
02:28But I did mention you've won a lot of awards.
02:31So I decided to look it up on Wikipedia.
02:33Oh, no.
02:34I always find it so cringe, but I'll let you do it.
02:37It's 11 straight pages.
02:41Only to point out that the movies you choose somehow bring rewards beyond here in the industry
02:49as well.
02:50How does that feel, you know, to get that kind of recognition repeatedly?
02:54Well, I can certainly say that for the films that I have been a part of that have received
03:00sometimes even unexpected recognition by way of whether it's nominations or wins, for those
03:06films which are sometimes smaller, slightly more quirky pieces, I have felt enormously
03:13proud of that.
03:14Because I think what people don't understand is that independent filmmaking is so drastically
03:19different to studio films, where your financing comes from lots of different places as opposed
03:23to one studio.
03:25And actually, you have to fight for those films a little bit more, and the timing of
03:28their release can impact on literally how many people see that movie.
03:33It's interesting, in the case of Eternal Sunshine, I remember that film being released at a very
03:37odd time of the year, the film year, being in like it was March or an April release or
03:42something like that.
03:43And so the fact that it sort of continued to have a life right through into that particular
03:48award season was sort of amazing, really.
03:51So I've been very fortunate.
03:53And it is important for these movies to have a life beyond their first release.
03:57It's so tough right now to get distribution.
04:01Let's talk about Lee, because Lee, it's eight years you've been working on this, trying
04:05to bring it to fruition.
04:06I should mention, you're also a producer, and not just in name, you really produce the
04:11hell out of this.
04:12So I feel like I more produce Lee than actually was in it in a funny way, even though I, apparently
04:18according to our director and our co-producer, I'm in every single scene apart from two,
04:24which even I am like, gosh, yeah, I really was.
04:27So I started developing the project largely one to one with Anthony Penrose, Lee Miller's
04:31son, back in September of 2015.
04:35And yes, we shot the film at the end of 2022.
04:38And we had a wonderful screening at the opening of TIFF in 2023.
04:44And then we realized that it didn't make sense if I wasn't able to talk about the film, which
04:48because of the strike, I wouldn't have been able to do that.
04:50And so we waited to release the film until now.
04:53And actually, it's nine years now, which is just extraordinary.
04:58I mean, I just kept going.
05:01And sometimes with these small films, you have to sort of bring everyone with you and
05:07sort of hope for the best.
05:08And that was kind of what we did, really, from start to finish.
05:11And I am enormously proud of the film.
05:14And you should be.
05:15I've actually heard you say, when you look at everything you've done in your career and
05:20all these kind of landmark movies, many of them, I heard you say this one may be the
05:25most important to you in some ways.
05:27Well, I think it was just there were things about playing Lee and putting the film together
05:33that taught me so much.
05:36It went beyond anything I've ever learned about the world behind the camera than ever
05:40before.
05:41And producing is a completely different job, not only to acting, but it's totally different
05:45to executive producing, which I have done before.
05:48Executive producing, you know, you have sort of meaningful, creative consultation.
05:52And that has been a fantastic experience in the case of Mare of Easttown, for example.
05:56It was really terrific to have that kind of a relationship with HBO and our directors
06:00and our writer.
06:01But with Lee, I mean, it was find the writer, put the thing together, find the financing
06:08employer, director, find a co-producer.
06:11Sometimes I would sit in the garden at home and I think, hey, how am I really going to
06:14do this?
06:15And I would just keep going, just dig deep and take a big breath.
06:18And actually, at the end of the day, part of the reason why I didn't want to let it
06:23go was not only did I truly believe that Lee Miller's story absolutely deserved and needed
06:28to be told, but also Anthony Penrose, her son, is in his 70s now and he's dedicated
06:33the last 35 years of his life to upholding his mother's memory.
06:36And actually, if for no other reason than for him to have a certain degree of closure
06:42in having this film made, that was certainly reason enough to do it.
06:46I'd say having the right film made, because it's kind of extraordinary that her story
06:51has not been brought to the screen before.
06:54And I believe he's had many offers and scripts and things, right?
06:58That's very true.
06:59And he did say to me, well, there's a box of screenplays up in the attic of film versions
07:04that have never been made.
07:05And I was gobsmacked.
07:07And without going into too much detail, a couple of those screenplays were really very,
07:12very good.
07:14And I said to him, why weren't you comfortable with a version of her life being made before?
07:19And he just said to me, no one seemed to really get her.
07:23And I think what he meant by that is that Lee was, she was a person who didn't shy
07:29away from the truth, telling the truth, revealing the truth, and sometimes the ugly truth.
07:34And she was also someone who suffered terrible PTSD after the war, like so many people did.
07:40And she was a complex mother to him as a consequence.
07:47And that didn't mean in any way that her story was any less compelling, in fact, more so,
07:53because everything that she had gone through was seismic and added to who she was.
07:59And it meant that her integrity and her resilience and her compassion were things that I felt
08:06were her sort of resounding characteristics above and beyond everything else.
08:11And so I focused on that, that side of her, that very female side that represented strength
08:17and courage and power and determination.
08:21And that's what we do with the film.
08:23We focus on that 10 years just before, during and immediately after the war, the most defining
08:27decade of her life.
08:29And not the traditional biopic kind of soup-to-nuts story of a person.
08:34You really focused in on these war years and her extraordinary, considering she was this
08:40model and everything else, and she went on the front lines of World War II.
08:45Exactly right.
08:46And I think to have made a straight-up traditional biopic, first of all, that possibly would
08:51have been foolish because Lee Miller lived so many lives.
08:55She kept reinventing herself.
08:56Even after the war, later in her life, she had a facelift and became a cordon bleu chef.
09:00I mean, she was just a remarkable life-liver who just sort of kept going.
09:08But Lee was somebody who had been labeled somewhat, not incorrectly, but in a slightly
09:14infantilizing way.
09:17We would often describe Lee as this woman who, or rather the internet and the world
09:22at large would describe her as the ex-lover and former muse of Man Ray, that reductive
09:28word, muse.
09:30And she was a model for a sliver of her life, actually hated being a model, and moved away
09:34from that very quickly, and she always wanted to be a photographer.
09:38So to make a film that kept her love life very much to one side and focused on her true
09:44love with Roland Pembroke as Anthony's father, played by Alexander SkarsgÄrd in our film,
09:48but also the time in her life that I felt she would have been the proudest of.
09:54Yeah.
09:55And that comes through.
09:56And there's so many things about making this movie the right way, just right down to the
10:02photographs.
10:03Yeah.
10:04All those amazing photographs, what you chose to focus on, I think was key.
10:09Yeah.
10:10We were driven and somewhat guided by her real images, and I obviously was using the
10:16camera, learned how to use the camera for real, and was documenting everything as we
10:19were shooting it too, which I, again, was another thing that took obviously time, and
10:26was really important to me because I didn't want her camera to feel like a prop at any
10:29moment.
10:30But we were, yes, absolutely guided by those images, and built a narrative from start to
10:35finish led by that.
10:37And her journey, and inventing the narrative around how she had come to be in each one
10:43of those situations, the courage and the determination to not just stand back and photograph
10:51what she could see inside those train carriages on the outskirts of Dachau, but to climb up
10:57into the carriage and stand amongst the horrors that she discovered, and to photograph the
11:02faces of the innocent soldiers looking in.
11:05I mean, she did some things that were extraordinary, all in order to not just reveal the truth,
11:11because people didn't believe it, and also so much of it was kept from view.
11:16But she did it for the female readers of British Vogue, and we actually know from the Ministry
11:20of Information, this is publicly known, that women were getting their information about
11:24the war from reading Vogue, not from the broadsheets.
11:27Isn't that interesting?
11:28Yeah.
11:29I thought it was a really interesting scene in the movie when Vogue does the whole spread
11:33of that, and Lee expected to have these photos, and instead, the magazine decided not to publish
11:40them.
11:41And boy, did she go on a tear.
11:43Yes.
11:44Absolutely right.
11:45So, Audrey Withers, who was her editor of British Vogue at the time, played by the exquisite
11:50Andrea Ryseborough, she's just wonderful.
11:53Audrey's hands were somewhat tied by the Ministry of Information, and there were certain things
11:57that had to go through the censor, and some things she just wasn't permitted to print.
12:02But it was a time during the war, after the liberation, when they were saying, you know,
12:05we've got to lift people's spirits, and we can't keep printing these hard images for
12:11people to see.
12:12People don't want to see that.
12:13We have to change the subject now.
12:15So Audrey was only able to print two very, very small images, really no bigger than a
12:20postage stamp, on less than a third of one page.
12:24And Lee was absolutely heartbroken, and she truly believed that if the world wasn't going
12:28to see it, that no one should.
12:30And there's a scene in our film which really happened, and I know this because I met a
12:35woman who's now elderly, who worked as a 15-year-old secretary at Vogue at the time, and she told
12:39me this story, that Lee had come in one day, in a terrible state, and was frantically pulling
12:46open drawers and filing cabinets, looking for her images.
12:50And she found them, and she took scissors, and she hacked into those images in an effort
12:55to destroy them.
12:56And this young girl, elderly lady now, said to me that the only thing she could think
13:01to stop her, because she really thought Lee was going to hurt herself with the scissors,
13:05she turned to her and she said, now you look here, Lee Miller, those are my good scissors,
13:09you jolly well give them back.
13:11And Lee stopped, she stopped, and she put the scissors down, and she left the building.
13:16But it's really true, and so this is an authentic retelling of that time in Lee's life, and
13:23of course we had full access to the archive given to us by Anthony Penrose, and without
13:28that and without his collaboration, I think I would have been completely lost, but I really
13:33had my hands on and in Lee's whole world, from everything to her camera kit and her
13:39negatives and the prints, to her clothes, her personal letters and diaries, and it was
13:44an extraordinary experience.
13:45That's extraordinarily helpful as an actor.
13:48Yeah, I mean I couldn't have done it without that I think, and there were things in there
13:51that were surprisingly telling.
13:54She didn't really keep diaries, Lee, but she did keep very small accounts to do with
14:00her physical and mental health.
14:02When she was a teenager, for a few months, she seemed to make a lot of little, little
14:06entries, and it was clear that as a teenager she really struggled.
14:10So everything that Lee was, and the way she carried herself in the world, the way she
14:15was in her friendships, she was extremely warm towards everyone around her, but she
14:20was an extraordinary champion of other women, and a lot of that was because her own experiences
14:26as a child, as a teenager, had been tough, and so she was, her strength and her courage
14:32was somewhat hard won.
14:34It's amazing, and it's such a great cast that you managed to put together here.
14:38You mentioned Alexander SkarsgÄrd and Andrea Risborough, Marion Cotillard's taking a supporting
14:44role in this, and Andy Samberg.
14:48Who could have imagined SNL comedian and all of that, and how did you see that Andy Samberg
14:57would be, he's so good in this.
14:59He's so good.
15:00I mean, all of our actors were just wonderful.
15:02They all said yes.
15:03Josh O'Connor.
15:04Josh O'Connor, and as you say, wonderful Marion Cotillard coming and playing a supporting
15:08role.
15:09It was just remarkable how once they'd committed to us, they remained committed, and often
15:14with an independent film, things shift, dates change, but they just stayed with us, and
15:20Andy Samberg, it was pointed out to me by our original writer Marion Hume, who's a very
15:25old friend of mine.
15:26This was the first screenplay she'd ever written.
15:28She was previously a fashion journalist and editor of Australian Vogue, and she said to
15:33me one day, Kate, have you ever noticed how much like the real Davy Sherman Andy Samberg
15:39is?
15:40I said, no, that hasn't occurred to me.
15:42She said, look now, and I looked, and it is uncanny, and she said, go on, ring him up.
15:46I said, I don't know Andy Samberg.
15:48She said, oh, come on, you can get a number for him, get in touch with him, talk to him
15:51about it, and having had experiences myself of working with Jim Carrey, Seth Rogen, for
15:57example, Jack Black, I know that comedians, comedic performers, I know that they are all
16:04some of the most deeply thinking people I've ever met in my life.
16:08And so a conversation began with Andy, and I said, look, do you want to just read something
16:14and see?
16:15And he said, yeah, I want to just see if I can do it, and what you feel and think.
16:19And he was just fantastic straight away, and he got it, and he got who Davy Sherman was.
16:25He understood the story we were trying to tell, and he was utterly fantastic, and such
16:31a trooper and a real mensch, he was wonderful.
16:34You know, I was thinking, oddly, when I was watching this movie, just in terms of your
16:37career, The Reader, for which you won an Oscar.
16:41Kind of a flip side of this.
16:42It seems so crazy.
16:43It is.
16:44Yeah.
16:45I mean, you played an illiterate Nazi.
16:48You were on the completely other side of what Lee is doing here in exposing them.
16:53That's absolutely right, and I think having had the experience of making The Reader, it
16:59certainly helped in terms of, there was so much of the research about that particular
17:05time in history that I had done, and it's very true, once you see those kinds of images,
17:10you can never unsee them, and to know that Lee was one of the very, very few women who
17:17got permission to go, who kept going, who didn't shy away.
17:21She was there to be that visual voice for the victims of conflict, and that's what's
17:26so unique about her work.
17:27She wasn't photographing the soldiers and the gunfire and the bloodshed.
17:30She was looking into the cracks and the corners and seeing the destruction and what was happening
17:35to those innocent victims, and making sure that their stories are never forgotten.
17:40And there's a remarkably selfless thing that happens when a person does that, to be so
17:48unveiled and utterly without ego, and the level of courage it took, it's just, it takes
17:53my breath away.
17:54Yeah.
17:55It's amazing.
17:56When you look at the roles that you're choosing, right up to now, right up to Lee, right up
18:00to Mare, right up to...
18:05You're doing a lot of television mini-series, limited series now, and I find that a great
18:09format.
18:10Well, it's fantastic.
18:11To do.
18:12Yeah, it's fantastic.
18:13In many ways, it's almost a luxury, actually, because you have so much more time.
18:18Time, yeah.
18:19In which to tell your story.
18:20In the case of Mare, COVID cut right in the middle, so from the beginning to the end of
18:24the whole shoot, I ended up playing the character for over a year, which was crazy.
18:29The regime last year that I made also for HBO was six months.
18:32I mean, these things, you just have more time in which to tell your story, so it's something
18:37of a creative indulgence in many ways, in comparison to independent filmmaking.
18:42Lee, we had nine weeks, nine weeks to shoot across three countries.
18:47Unbelievable.
18:48Which is unbelievable.
18:49You shot in Croatia and...
18:51Croatia and Budapest, and a little tiny bit in London.
18:54London is very expensive, so we had to keep that to an absolute bare minimum.
19:00Oh, yeah, yeah.
19:01Well, you're a producer here, so...
19:02Yeah, oh, God.
19:03But believe me, I was like, no, we can't afford that extra day in London, let's just keep
19:07it to two, and we'll try and recreate it in other places, which we did.
19:10I thought it was really interesting that you hired, as your director, Ellen Kuris, who's
19:14a famous cinematographer, who had never directed a feature before.
19:19You had faith in it, and was it because she was a photographer, was it because she was
19:23a woman, was it because she...
19:26It was a combination of those things, and also, I really believe in everyone having
19:30to start somewhere, and Ellen, of course, has an extraordinary, decades-long career.
19:36Eternal sunshine.
19:37Yeah, since Eternal Sunshine was when I first worked with her, but a much-revered cinematographer
19:42who had moved over into television, but she hadn't directed a feature, and of course,
19:47I knew that she could do it.
19:48I absolutely believed in her, and it just wouldn't have made sense to have a man, I
19:55think, direct this film.
19:56Plus, I think, given Ellen's experience of telling stories visually, as a cinematographer,
20:02would only lend itself to what we were trying to do with our film, in making sure that we
20:08were following Lee's photographic journey in conveying our narrative, and I was very,
20:13very lucky that Ellen said yes.
20:15And she brought it so well, because I can't imagine bringing still photos to life in cinema.
20:23It's not always easy.
20:24I've seen a lot of films about photographers and things, and good and bad, in terms of
20:28that.
20:29This one really brings these photos to life in an interesting way.
20:32All the way...
20:33I don't want to give away the ending, because we want people to go see this movie, and so
20:36there are little twists at the end.
20:39Yes, there are.
20:40But it says so much about the power of photos, to me.
20:44Well, exactly.
20:45And that resonated with me as well, in an enormous way, and in a very impactful way,
20:51and in a way that actually makes me now view the work of war correspondents with profound
20:58admiration and respect.
21:01And yes, exactly as you say, with our film, we couldn't just show Lee's images.
21:07We couldn't just sort of reveal that in flashback or flashforward.
21:11It was about fleshing out those narratives, telling her story.
21:14And I often find myself saying, you know, this is not a film about a war.
21:18It's a film about a woman.
21:21And that's important to stress as well, I think, because we do experience Lee's life,
21:26just pre-war, when no one believed it was coming.
21:28No one thought it was really going to happen.
21:31And there she is, as we see in the south of France, with her surrealist friends, and Man Ray
21:34and Picasso, having this wonderful sort of hedonistic summer of love.
21:39And that was how they lived their lives.
21:41So we wanted to show that, so we could jump from that to just how extreme it is, what
21:47she did, because she absolutely believed that, first of all, she had, as a woman, the right
21:51to go, but also believed in revealing the ugly truth.
21:56You had something that happened, I believe, right before filming, that would be, I don't
22:00know if it's worse to be the actor's nightmare or the producer's nightmare, but you had an
22:04accident with your back, right?
22:06The day before.
22:07The day before you're supposed to shoot.
22:09So we're out in Budapest, we're about out in Croatia, I'm sorry, and we're about to
22:13start shooting.
22:14And the day before, we just wanted to have a blocking rehearsal of running through the
22:18streets of San Marlo, because we had a lot of stunt performers involved, and just we
22:21needed to all be good with our safety.
22:23So yeah, as a producer and as an actress there, I was rehearsing this scene, and I was running
22:29at full pelt through the streets of San Marlo, and into the lobby of our hotel set, and there
22:34was a marble floor covered in sand, and I just went whip, bang, like slipping on an
22:40ice rink.
22:41And yes, I very, very badly injured my back, but it was an independent film, what are you
22:46going to do?
22:47Take an insurance day?
22:48No, definitely not.
22:49And so I, yeah, I was in agony, but I just kept going.
22:54And then found out from Anthony Pemrose that Lee went through the war with excruciating
23:01back pain.
23:03Thanks Lee, that's another thing, another challenge you've sent me.
23:07Thank you very much.
23:08Maybe a little more method than you.
23:10Perhaps, perhaps taking the method just a little far, but yeah, it's true.
23:15But you know, it's old school, you know, you just dig deep and carry on, and that's what
23:19we did.
23:20That's so crazy.
23:21I think back to your first film that you made with Peter Jackson, Heavenly Creatures, you
23:26know, at a very young age, and you're playing, this is a true story too, you know, and all
23:31of that.
23:33And the characters that you've chosen since are very, you know, there's certain types
23:37of women that you're interested in playing, I think.
23:40Well, I'm certainly interested in probably pushing myself.
23:48I mean, you know, because often my instinct is often, oh my God, how on earth would I
23:52do that?
23:53That seems actually terrifying.
23:54You know, they should find somebody else who would be able to do that better than me.
23:58And then I think, oh no, hang on, that's probably, fear is a good thing, and maybe that's why
24:02I'm feeling that way.
24:05But I am definitely interested, I'm very interested in the human condition, how people think,
24:10what motivates them.
24:11I mean, with Leigh Miller, you know, because something had happened to her as a child that
24:16was incredibly traumatic, she somehow refused to allow that thing to define her.
24:23And really remarkably, Leigh was someone who was utterly without malice.
24:27She wasn't a man hater.
24:28She was very warm, extremely free and open with her affectionate self, and her physical
24:34self.
24:35And I admired that enormously, to know what she must have gone through to come to a place
24:43of self-acceptance and openness with the world and people around her, and to remain curious,
24:49and not full of loathing or vengeance in any way.
24:53I just thought that was utterly extraordinary.
24:56You know, Heavenly Creatures was exactly 30 years ago, this year.
25:00Well, I filmed it 32 years ago, because I'm 49 now, and it was shot when I was 17.
25:06Oh wow.
25:07I know, isn't that amazing?
25:08You and Melanie Linsky.
25:09I know.
25:10Melanie Linsky, who's just, oh God, she's just so brilliant.
25:15And yeah, I guess we both got lucky and kept being invited back to the party.
25:19I'll say.
25:20Thank goodness.
25:21I love how they track, you know, oh, she's now the youngest actress to get five Oscar
25:26nominations.
25:27Then you're the, then you break your own record, you know, in six and things.
25:31It's so hilarious the way.
25:33It's still amazing to me, all of it.
25:36And I just have, I just have so much gratitude.
25:40And even when, like you, at the beginning of our interview, reminding me of these wonderful
25:45things that have happened, I sort of think, God, is that really me?
25:47Does that really happen to me?
25:49Yeah.
25:50I feel like that's, I'm, I'm kind of quite an unlikely person for those things to have
25:53happened to, you know, not trained, grew up with, you know, in very sort of low socioeconomic
26:00environment.
26:01And I just, somehow, I don't know, the universe is.
26:04Did you always know you had the acting knack?
26:07Well, I certainly didn't know I had the knack, but I absolutely had the bug, which is different.
26:12I always wanted to act.
26:14I didn't think about being in films particularly.
26:16I think I was surrounded by a bunch of wonderful, but impoverished actors who were doing it
26:22all for the love of it.
26:23And so for me, it was, you know, let's play, let's go, let's put on a performance, you
26:27know, for our friends here and right in the front room and, and, and dressing up and putting
26:31on costumes.
26:32And, and so I always did it for the love of it and, and, and hoped that maybe I would
26:37get cast in theatre, perhaps, and maybe some television if I was lucky.
26:41But I certainly never thought about films and that being part of my life.
26:45Wow.
26:46That's amazing.
26:47Did you think you ever do, I'm sure they ask you this all the time, because EGOT is there
26:51and you have the E and you've got the G, you've got a Grammy and you've got the O, you need
26:58So I have an ego, is what you're telling me.
27:00Yeah.
27:01You have an ego.
27:02I have an ego.
27:03You need the T. Do you ever think about going on stage?
27:07I do think about it and I, I think, I think about it a lot and I've had, I've had many
27:12conversations over the years with, with different directors about the possibility, but you know,
27:17what I'll tell you is that I became a parent when I was really young and actually doing
27:21theatre when you are a parent of young children is really, it's really hard because you do,
27:27you know, eight or nine shows a week, you know, two on a Saturday, sometimes two even
27:31on a Sunday and Monday's your day off and you're never there for bedtime and exhausted
27:37in the morning and, and so I just couldn't ever make my peace with that being a sensible
27:42choice at any given time in my life.
27:46It is something that I'm starting to think about a little bit more seriously now.
27:50And so we'll see.
27:51I'd love to do it.
27:52Yeah.
27:53I'd love, I'd love to go on stage.
27:54People would love to see you on stage.
27:55Robert Downey just went and made his Broadway debut.
27:56Yeah.
27:57Good, good for him.
27:58I mean, good for him.
27:59Yeah.
28:00I just, yeah.
28:01I'm very excited by the idea.
28:02So hopefully.
28:03Yeah.
28:04Oh, cool.
28:05That would be amazing.
28:07And I know, I keep mentioning that you won a Grammy and people think, I didn't know she
28:09could sing that well and all that.
28:12You won it for.
28:13I won it for spoken word.
28:15Spoken word.
28:16And honestly, the circumstances around me winning that Grammy are absolutely weird because
28:22it was, it was for something that had been composed by a wonderful composer named Patrick
28:27Doyle who had done Sense and Sensibility and he had written this beautiful piece of music
28:32and there was a poem that went with it and he called me up.
28:37It was quite last minute and I slightly have the feeling even that maybe someone else had
28:42dropped out because it was so last minute.
28:44He said, oh, could you come and help me?
28:45It's tomorrow.
28:46It's just a couple of hours in the afternoon.
28:48If you'd be free.
28:49I said, oh, sure.
28:50And because I knew him and I wanted to help him, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:55Just tell me where to come.
28:56And I got the cab there and went in and recorded this piece and we all won Grammys.
29:01I mean, it's completely, it almost doesn't seem quite fair, I have to say.
29:06But obviously, I'm enormously, enormously grateful for that as well.
29:11It's like just one of those very fortunate, bizarre sets of circumstances.
29:16That's so amazing.
29:17I've noticed on all your credits, you do a lot of voiceover and things.
29:21You seem to enjoy doing that.
29:22I love doing voiceover, narration I really love because I love conveying a full narrative
29:27start to finish.
29:28And I really love doing audio books for children because I think story reading that the tactile
29:34experience isn't necessarily available to all children.
29:38But some form of digital space can be accessed for sometimes less money.
29:43And actually to be able to read a bedtime story to lots and lots of children who might
29:48not have a parent who can sit and do that, who may not yet be able to read themselves.
29:53That's something I find I find really gratifying.
29:55I love it.
29:56And you also love tables.
29:58I do.
29:59Because that led to the...
30:00It's so funny to me how fate sometimes works.
30:03If somebody hadn't called you up, tell me that story.
30:06Yes.
30:07So I do.
30:08I love cooking and creating wonderful meals for people and tables and sort of sharing
30:15around the table is something that is that we do a lot in my family and have a great
30:20love of those spaces.
30:22And some friends of mine who work for an auction house called me and they said, oh, this table's
30:26come in.
30:27We think you should bid on it.
30:28And bearing in mind, I've never bid on anything in my life.
30:31Not even so much as a, I don't know, I don't know, like even like who's going to win something
30:36or that nothing.
30:38And so they said, listen, let us tell you about the table.
30:40And it was a it was the kitchen table owned in the family holiday home of the Penrose
30:46family during a time when Lee Miller and Roland Penrose were lovers pre pre-war.
30:53And and Lee was a great cook.
30:55And she would cook and prepare food at this table.
30:57And then all of their wonderful, creative friends would sit and share these these great
31:01meals.
31:02And and this table and the home was all up for sale.
31:06And and here was the table and I, I bought it.
31:09And you didn't really know much about Lee Miller when you're buying.
31:11No, I knew who she was.
31:13Absolutely.
31:14I was very aware of who she was and I was familiar with some of her photographic work,
31:18but I didn't know anything about her as a woman.
31:21I didn't know anything about her, the detail of her life, her relationships.
31:25I didn't know that she had a son.
31:28And that was the thing that intrigued me.
31:30I sat at the table and I thought, wow, Lee Miller, I wonder why nobody's made a film
31:33about her.
31:35And here I am nine years later.
31:36And I still sort of can't really believe it's done and that I don't have to almost keep
31:40trying to make the film because it was such a vast experience.
31:45And so, yeah.
31:46And here I am talking to you, Pete.
31:47I will say the movie is not done because you're sitting here talking about it and you want
31:51to talk about it because you want people to see it and know who Lee Miller was.
31:54Yeah.
31:55Well, that was the reason for making the film.
31:58I wanted to make a film that would encourage audiences to discover her in this way, on
32:05her terms, for who she truly was and what she did in documenting the atrocities of the
32:10Nazi regime, but following the stories of those innocent victims and the courage that
32:16she had in doing that.
32:17At a time when women were simply not being given the permission to go into those male-dominated
32:22spaces and redefining femininity 80 years ago to mean resilience and power and courage
32:29and compassion, everything that we are living our lives by now, myself, my sisters, my friends.
32:35It's how we're raising our daughters.
32:36And that's why Lee's story, I felt, was something that needed to be pulled out of the shadows
32:40and put in its rightful place on screen.
32:42Extremely relevant for today.
32:45The movie is Lee.
32:46The star and producer, Kate Winslet.
32:49Thank you for joining us on The X.
32:51Thanks, Pete.