“The men who think you want and need their help are unbelievably outraging,” Winslet said. “I’ve even had a director say to me: ‘Listen, you do my film and I’ll get your little ‘Lee’ funded…’ Little! Or we’d have potential male investors saying things like: ‘Tell me, why am I supposed to like this woman?’”

“Oh, my God! This is the best part,” Winslet said. “Young actresses now — fuck me — they are unafraid. It makes me so proud. And I think, Yes, all the shit flinging, all the struggle, all the using my voice for years, often being finger-​pointed at and laughed at — I don’t give a shit! It was all bloody worth it.

Because the culture is changing in the way that I couldn’t in my wildest dreams have imagined in my 20s.”

On the first day of filming Lee in the French port of Saint-Malo, Winslet slipped while running and injured her back.

“I had three massive hematomas on my spine, huge,” the actor said. “I could barely stand up.” But she refused to let the production get delayed, even paying out of pocket the cast and crew’s wages for two weeks when financing hit a speed bump.

She also refused to let the injury impact scenes in the film in which she appears topless or in a bikini top. The injury prevented her from working out for the scenes.

“You know I had to be really fucking brave about letting my body be its softest version of itself and not hiding from that,” Winslet said about the film’s nude scenes.

“And believe me, people amongst our own team would say, ‘You might just want to sit up a bit.’ And I’d go, ‘Why? [Because of] the bit of flesh you can see? No, that’s the way it’s going to be!’”

“I know better than to waste precious energy on criticizing my physical self,” she added. “I think any woman is better off just saying: I believe in myself. It doesn’t matter what other people think; this is who I am — let’s get on with it.”

Lee is currently seeking distribution.

.