Kate Winslet plays another tough broad in Lee teaser

Kate Winslet clearly enjoys trading her traditional movie star beauty to play tough, life-hardened women (see: Mare Of Easttown). It makes her well-suited to star as Lee Miller, who traded her own comfortable life as a model-turned-fashion photographer to become a photojournalist on the ground in World War II. Lee, which premieres September 27, doesn’t flinch away from the harrowing realities of warfare, which is exactly what Winslet set out to do as both the star and producer of the film.

Directed by Ellen Kuras, Lee “portrays a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer, Lee Miller (Kate Winslet). Miller’s singular talent and unbridled tenacity resulted in some of the 20th century’s most indelible images of war, including an iconic photo of Miller herself, posing defiantly in Hitler’s private bathtub,” reads a synopsis for the movie. “Miller had a profound understanding and empathy for women and the voiceless victims of war. Her images display both the fragility and ferocity of the human experience. Above all, the film shows how Miller lived her life at full throttle in pursuit of truth, for which she paid a huge personal price, forcing her to confront a traumatic and deeply buried secret from her childhood.”

The new movie is based on the 1985 biography The Lives Of Lee Miller by Miller’s son Antony Penrose, who told Vogue last year, “When I saw Kate all those years ago in Titanic, what I loved was that she wasn’t afraid to get wet, to get dirty, to fall in the water, to get roughed up. I thought she would make a fantastic Lee Miller.” Winslet’s goal for the film was not to sensationalize Miller’s life—she was involved in the Surrealist art movement, interacted with many prominent artists of the time, and had a few lovers—but to portray her truthfully. “Lee was a woman who lived her life on her terms and she paid a horrific emotional price for all of it,” the actor explained to Vogue. “I wanted to tell the story of a flawed middle-​aged woman who went to war and documented it.”

Lee also stars Josh O’Connor, Andrea Riseborough, Alexander Skarsgård, Marion Cotillard, and Andy Samberg in his first dramatic role. “I couldn’t say no to acting opposite Kate Winslet,” he told the outlet. “She’s incredible. I knew this [movie] would be of a certain quality, no matter what, because of her.”