Kate Winslet Is Fighting for Her Passion Project: “Do You Have Any Idea How F–king Hard It Is?”

Over the years, I’ve interviewed plenty of actors at noisy spots around Los Angeles, but no one has ever been as concerned about my recording device as Kate Winslet. The Oscar- and Emmy-winning star shows up to a Beverly Hills restaurant patio ready to talk, warmly and frankly and ever so profanely, as is her wont. But she’s concerned about how I’ll be able to transcribe the conversation, what with the motorcycles zooming by and a literal party assembling a few tables down. “Oh my God, it’s so loud—like standing in the middle of the 405,” she says. “You’re amazing at being able to concentrate and cope.” I assure her it’ll record fine, but she’d rather not risk the alternative. She takes my phone, places it atop her glass of iced tap water, and speaks into it like a makeshift microphone.

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Winslet is a pro. She has been doing these kinds of interviews since she was a teenager, while building out one of the most dynamic, ambitious filmographies of any actor of her generation. The choices seem to keep getting more interesting: a repressed English fossil collector in the underseen Ammonite, a haunted Pennsylvania detective in the sensation Mare of Easttown. In Lee, which hit theaters in September, she movingly portrays the groundbreaking World War II photographer Lee Miller. The task was heavy, as the story covered the sexual trauma of Miller’s youth as well as her singular courage on the battlefield.

Winslet has returned to Los Angeles on a balmy October weekend to try and keep getting the word out about a film that’s been with her for a decade. She started developing Lee in the mid-2010s—it’s her first feature producing credit—and remained committed amid financing challenges as she enlisted director Ellen Kuras, rounds of screenwriters, and cast members she called up personally, such as Andy Samberg and Josh O’Connor. The film went on to receive solid reviews and perform well internationally—including a record UK box office gross for its distributor, Sky—but has struggled to gain traction in North America, where independent film has felt particularly endangered of late. Not that Winslet is giving up. That’s never been her style.

Vanity Fair: I covered this film before the Toronto premiere last year, and you could not speak for the story because of the strike.

Kate Winslet: Right. Yes, exactly.

How frustrating was kicking off a passion project—that was also searching for a distributor—and not being able to publicly support it?

So many people had to accept that they were releasing films that would’ve really benefited from them being able to speak publicly about the experience of having made them—and I was one of those people. The thing is, because I had been so patient and waited so long to make the film anyway, it was like, “Okay, well, it’s another thing.” You have to be quite sanguine about it.

So much of the way you play Lee is about bearing witness—you seeing the world and the war through her eyes, and allowing us into that perspective. Does that create an intense connection for you as an actor?

She didn’t decide it was too much for her and go home. She stayed until the bitter end—she went home after the liberation, and then she went back and photographed the aftermath. She wouldn’t give up, and she took risks. This was a person who took risks throughout her life. In doing all the prep for the film, one of the things that really took my breath away was when I spoke to the victims of sexual assault, of which I spoke to many, the one common thing they all said was, “You have to understand it gives you an ability to see the world in a way that no one else has.” The ability to detect evil from much further away becomes innate within that person. She was utterly without malice and remarkably didn’t hate men. I don’t know how she did that.

You mentioned how long you had to wait to get Lee made. This is your first credit as a full producer. When did you start thinking of yourself as somebody who wanted to develop projects from the ground up?

When I was younger, in my 20s, people would say to me, “Oh, you could start your own production company now and develop your own things.” I would think, “Well, that sounds really hard. I don’t think I’d even know how to do that.” Plus, I had my daughter when I was 25. I was raising a family. My focus was completely elsewhere, and it was as much as I could do to carve out the time to go and do the acting bit. I’ve gotten older and I’ve learned more and felt more confident in myself about whether or not I could actually do it. It’s not something I would’ve done had I not felt so passionately about the subject, and Lee was just—she wouldn’t let me go.

As somebody who has worked with so many great indie directors and built your career in that world, what have you learned on the other side of it—especially now, in a tough climate for indie film?

It’s really fucking hard. It has been really hard, and it hasn’t surprised me, funnily enough, because that is what independent filmmaking has always been. Perhaps there was a time when more independent films were being readily made, but you’re right, the climate has shifted so drastically in the last decade, even five years. That does scare me, and that is sad. It is really sad. When I think of the number of incredible actors who have consistently been forming extraordinary careers through almost entirely doing independent films—I think about Andrea Riseborough. With the debacle of last year, I remember some of the UK papers saying, “Who is Andrea Riseborough?” I was like, “How can that be? She’s Andrea Riseborough, she’s one of our fucking legends!” But her career has been making small, interesting things that sometimes come and go, might not necessarily get distribution overseas, et cetera. You know how it is, and I know how it is. But the world at large doesn’t necessarily know those things.

It doesn’t matter who you are. No one’s going to go, “Oh, I’ll just back that pony because she was in Titanic.”

What have you found hard, specifically, with selling Lee to the industry and audiences?

It just is absolutely constant. Discussing what a title will be for a different territory because perhaps “Lee” doesn’t make sense. Then the poster in those territories and what changes they want to make and do—or even come up with something different. Release dates. It is all just constant juggling, and every single thing needs equal attention. It doesn’t stop when the film is delivered, not by any stretch. I probably have covered more territory, in terms of physically going and doing the press, than as an actor I might have been asked to do. That has felt very necessary for this film. But it’s also just really important to me. It’s important to me that people know that it’s out there and might feel compelled to go and see it.

One thing in doing press for this film that I have found is people ask a confusing question: “You’re Kate Winslet! Surely you could have got this funded?” I’m like, “Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to make independent films?” It doesn’t matter who you are. No one’s going to go, “Oh, I’ll just back that pony because she was in Titanic.” It doesn’t happen that way, and I never expected that. That’s really important to say. The other thing that has come up often is people will say, “You’ve fought for years.” I just fought to keep going. I wasn’t banging people’s doors down fighting. It was a five-year development process to get the script right.

What you’re describing, excuse my language, is giving a shit.

Oh, yeah. I love that you say, “excuse my language.” I’ve said “fuck” 55 times already in this interview.

Upbringing stuff.

Me too.

But you’re speaking about wanting to get it right. No matter who you are, that’s not easy.

Exactly. But also with this film, I wanted to make it with the right people. I’m not just talking about the actors, I’m talking about everything—the crew, where the financing was coming from in terms of those individuals being good people, that also really mattered. I had a male financier say to me, “Why should I like this woman?” I was like, “Well, I’m not going to explain it to you, and clearly I’m not going to take your money.” It was absolutely baffling. Even getting people to understand that just because Lee Miller had a dangerous relationship with alcohol because of her PTSD didn’t mean that she was unlikable. I would feel so offended on her behalf that people would say those things.

I had a male financier say to me, “Why should I like this woman?” I was like, “Well, I’m not going to explain it to you, and clearly I’m not going to take your money.”

You’re also facing a more familiar double standard there—that her likability is being litigated at all—right?

There’s just a whole other set of questions that people pose to women that they simply don’t pose to men. I guess I don’t feel angry about that. It just makes me feel more empowered to keep going and telling important stories that have important female figures at their center. If we don’t keep making films about people like Lee Miller, how the hell are we ever going to change the culture and people’s attitudes towards complex, interesting women who have lived lives and wear all of their marks and their scars on their faces? But yeah, you’re right. I mean, there are a hell of a lot of double standards.

I’ve spoken with actors turned directors like Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Hall over the years who’ve basically said they were always filmmakers, in retrospect, but it took them decades in this industry to be able to direct their first movie. Do you connect to that sentiment at all?

It’s such a massive conversation, isn’t it? I’m trying to think here now. It is not fair that it’s easier for the men. It’s just not fair. It makes me feel determined to try and stay in that lane and continue trying to make films as a woman, because I feel that it’s incredibly important, not just for now and this sisterhood, but for sisterhoods yet to come. I want them to feel that they have as much right to sit at that table. We aren’t there yet. I really feel a sense of responsibility now.

Do you think about directing?

[Pause] Mm-hmm.

Can you say any more?

Oh, look, it’s raining over there by the fountain! Let’s talk about that instead! [Laughs.]

Intriguing, okay. What kinds of movies and TV are you interested in making, though? I’d think you have a good handle on your taste, having worked with such a range of filmmakers.

I certainly am drawn to stories that might make an audience think or give them pause about their own life. It’s often a long shot to ever hope that you might inspire people…[but] telling stories that might ignite debate, not even necessarily in a big way—perhaps at the school gates when the parents are dropping their children at school. Or even perhaps finding a way to open up a space for a conversation that may never otherwise have been had.

I did a film with my daughter called I Am Ruth [that] was completely improvised to every single word. Nothing scripted at all. All you have is a loose story structure that is printed like a script, but there are no scene numbers and there’s no dialogue written for the actors. So it’s a very immersive experience, and it was particularly hard for my daughter because she had to deal with some very, very dark themes. She’s fucking amazing. That was very much about a teenager’s very lonely, destructive addiction to her phone and social media. I wanted to tell that story because I could feel that it was an area of massive concern for so many parents that I knew. To be able to tell a story that maybe makes some people feel like that it’s not just them—that mattered a lot.

Are there older roles of yours where you still get that kind of feedback?

What’s really interesting is that there’s a whole other generation of young people discovering Eternal Sunshine. They’re discovering it in a different way, because I find that the Gen Z are much more open in terms of who they are and how they want to live their lives—what they want from their next decade, what they’ve learned and what they won’t repeat. There’s a sense of using their voices that is much more palpable now than it was perhaps when we actually made the film back in 2003. What’s fascinating, having been acting for such a long time, is watching how a newer audience coming at something will find totally different things to what an audience found then. People now say, “Oh my God, that was me. I was Clementine. I was her. I was her. I still am her now. Oh my God.” And they’ll really cite reasons why.

When my mother died, I remember thinking, thank God I had talked to her about her own life because I think sometimes when a parent passes away, there can be a moment afterwards where you think, “Oh God, I wish I had known more. I wish I’d asked them about their childhood or the first job that they did or their past loves.” I was thinking the other day, “My God, how lucky I am,” because they’ll have this whole film library of what I look like from 17 and the way through. I’ve been pregnant when I’ve worked with my children. They’ll be able to see knowing that that’s them inside that pregnant belly, things like that. It’s kind of extraordinary.

There’s a whole other generation of young people discovering Eternal Sunshine. I find that the Gen Z are much more open in terms of who they are and how they want to live their lives.

You get asked a lot about Eternal Sunshine, to say nothing of Titanic or Mare. What are some projects you wish you got asked about more?

I would enjoy it if people asked me more about Revolutionary Road, actually. The thing that people say is, “You got to work with Leo again.” Then they go off on the whole Leo tangent, which I totally understand, but Revolutionary Road—fucking hell, it just knocked us all sideways. Unbelievably difficult material. I was very proud of that film and what Leo and I were able to create as Frank and April. It was so brutal. So I’m kind of surprised.

I guess the other one is maybe Iris. People don’t really ask me about Iris. It’s such a delicate film. It was the first thing I had done after having my daughter. Going to work with a baby, I’m playing Iris Murdoch, looking to Judi Dench’s older Iris Murdoch—I was shitting myself.

I’ve watched you speak about making Lee a bit, and I’ve seen you cry a few times while reflecting on it. How do you generally let go of projects? Is it difficult for you?

Certain experiences in life stay with you. Certain characters that you play stay with you. Lee is someone who will stay with me in ways that I can’t comprehend because she was so inspiring in how she lived her life, how she walked through the world, how she carried her physical self. She was without shame. I do find myself getting very moved when I talk about the film because it was such an authentic retelling of her story. We had her photographs and we were tasked with creating narratives around how she had come to capture every single one of those images. Lee never told anyone what had happened to her.

Sometimes it can be just a complete joy to let go and say, “Okay, we’re done.” I might want to do that but can’t do that, and that’s when it’s like, “Okay, how am I going to talk about the therapy scenes in Mare and not still be finding them emotional four and a half years later?” Because personally, I do. I don’t want it to sound indulgent or weird, but I sometimes do find it very hard to let go, which is probably why I don’t work more. I find I do have to have big breaks between things to sort of just come back to life and reboot. That’s just always been my way of managing it.

You’ve referred to those scenes in Mare, and the most emotional confession scene of Lee, where you’re sitting on the stairs with Andrea Riseborough, as some of the hardest days of shooting you’ve ever had.

With Lee, it’s as close as I’ve ever come to feeling like I was a little bit possessed. I don’t enjoy talking about the process too much because we’re not curing cancer and we’re not saving lives. I’m not in a conflict zone capturing those images. But sometimes you just have to do it. You just have to really go there. And you can’t fake that stuff because people know if you’re faking. And that’s not my job.

Shooting the scene in Mare of Easttown when she’s with a therapist, and she recounts what happened on the day that her son died—you set up all the moments of the scene inside of yourself, and you really have to bed them in so that they’re present for when you have to make them come alive. Sometimes things do get stuck to the sides. We had lots of scenes in that therapist’s office, and it was across three days of shooting.

I bring them up because they’re both so recent in the arc of your career. Do you feel more comfortable going to those dark places as an actor right now?

I’m finding as I get older and I’ve lived more life, there are things that I have lived through that have to become available to me in a certain way as an actor. Not that I would necessarily be thinking of something else in the moment that I’m doing it, but it just means that your emotional toolkit gets bigger, really.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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