Kate Winslet fires up over Hollywood sexism

Kate Winslet has slammed Hollywood's perceived sexism.

The Oscar winner expressed her frustration over backers who didn't appreciate women-centred stories.

Kate, 48, both produced and starred in the upcoming biopic Lee, about Elizabeth "Lee" Miller - a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.

But she said it hadn't been easy to get funding for the film.

"I've been in this industry for a long time, won an Oscar. It doesn't make any f**king difference when you're making a film about a historical female figure," she told the Daily Mail.

"There was a backer who said to me, 'Why am I supposed to like this woman?' And I thought, 'Well, you're not going to be part of our film - so f**k you'."

Happily, Kate added, it was easy to weed out the people she didn't want to work with to create the film, based on their reaction to the pitch.

"Actually, that was great," Kate said. "To be able to just go, 'We're only going to make it with nice people who understand the story we are trying to tell'."

Lee is slated for release on 13 September.