Kate Winslet stars as war photographer who washed in Hitler’s bath

Looking every inch the battle-hardened foreign correspondent, this is Kate Winslet as World War Two photographer Lee Miller.

These are the first images of the Oscar-winning British actress in Lee, the upcoming biopic of the courageous Miller, whose celebrated escapades included bathing in Hitler’s bath in the last days of the war.

The film is based on her son Antony Penrose’s biography The Lives of Lee Miller and recounts her career, in which the former fashion model became a war correspondent for British Vogue and captured some of the most memorable images of the conflict on camera.

She was one of just four female combat photographers accredited to follow the Allied troops after the D-Day invasion in 1944.

Winslet’s co-stars in the film include Jude Law, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Andy Samberg, Marion Cotillard and Andrea Riseborough.

The movie is due to be released on September 13 and has already earned acclaim for Winslet, with Variety magazine praising her “impressive range” in playing the “fearless” photographer.

After the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September last year, Winslet told Vogue how the production had encountered obstacles from the film industry, particularly from male producers who were unable to understand Miller and appreciate the significance of her achievements as a war photographer.

She said: “The men who think you want and need their help are unbelievably outraging. I’ve even had a director say to me: ‘Listen, you do my film and I’ll get your little Lee funded…’

“Or we’d have potential male investors saying things like: ‘Tell me, why am I supposed to like this woman?’”

First announced in 2015, the film took eight years to make. In 2022 Winslet suffered a back injury that threatened the future of the film, but she pressed on with the production even after being hospitalised and struggling to stand.

Speaking about being cast as Miller, Winslet told Sky in February: “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.”

She added: “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.”