Kate Winslet had her first producing experience in Lee, a biopic about war photographer Lee Miller.
"Being a producer is a completely different job," the actor told Digital Spy in an exclusive interview ahead of the release of the movie this week.
Winslet has worked as an executive producer in HBO shows The Regime and Mare of Easttown, but Lee marks her first-ever producing role. She argues it's "a completely different job".
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"An executive producer is often a person who might find the project in the first place and hand it on to somebody else. It might be somebody who comes on as a part financier. It might be somebody who lends production office space. It can have any kind of form, that role.
"But being a producer is a person who sees it right from the beginning, the nuts and bolts, the details, the cash flow, the crew, the locations… Everything right to the end of delivering the film.
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"So that is a completely different job, and that is what I did on Lee for the first time in my life."
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Winslet has been working for almost a decade to bring Lee Miller's story to the big screen, and she describes the experience as "amazing."
"I think having that much creative control and involvement, also being responsible for bringing everyone with us in the process, and making it enjoyable, making it a team effort and creating the energy every day and an environment in which people can really excel at their jobs that they do...
"That was the most important thing for me, and we did that every day on Lee."
Winslet is joined in the cast by Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Marion Cotillard (Inception), Alexander Skarsgård (The Northman), Josh O'Connor (Challengers) and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie).
"The tenacity and the drive that Kate [Winslet] had was very infectious and so exciting to be around. Her passion for this project was just extraordinary," Alexander Skarsgård, who plays real-life painter and Miller's husband Roland Penrose in the movie, told Digital Spy.
Directed by Ellen Kuras, who was the cinematographer behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the movie follows Miller as she changed from a fashion model into a war correspondent during World War II.
Lee is arriving in cinemas on September 13.
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Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
