'It's her truth': The new biopic revealing the secrets of enigmatic supermodel Kate Moss

In her long career, the fashion icon has rarely spoken about her private life. But now she's allowed it to be depicted in a film about her friendship with artist Lucian Freud.

The iconic supermodel Kate Moss has covered numerous magazines, walked thousands of fashion shows and rarely been out of the headlines since she was first scouted as a teenager from the London suburb of Croydon in the late '80s. 

Warning: This piece contains language which some readers may find offensive

But how much do we, the general public, really know about her? Beyond all the tabloid stories painting her as a party girl hanging out with various other A-listers, she has managed to remain something of an enigma, and has barely given interviews. In a 2012 piece for Vanity Fair, she revealed she had adopted the mantra "never complain, never explain" from her once-boyfriend Johnny Depp. 

Which is why the new film Moss & Freud – a semi-fictionalised account of when the esteemed artist Lucian Freud painted her portrait in 2002 – might come as a surprise, and a source of fascination to many. Written and directed by the Oscar-winning British-New Zealand film-maker James Lucas, it stars Ellie Bamber as an uncanny double of Moss, as she poses naked for Freud (played by Derek Jacobi) in the early '00s, and charts the unlikely friendship that blossomed between the two of them as a result.

The film is a tender, nuanced look at the private life of a woman in the glare of the celebrity spotlight, which suggests that at this point in her career she was suffering from burn-out. This odd-couple pairing with Freud, regarded as one of the most important British portraitists of the 20th Century, and known for his intimate and visceral paintings of his subjects, appears to lead Moss to re-evaluate herself, and her purpose. As she sits for Freud, every night from 19:00 to 02:00, for nine months, the film shows her simultaneously making some major life decisions.

Moss's involvement in the film

This is all not just conjecture on Lucas's part, as unprecedentedly, Moss not only approved his film – over the years, he says, she's turned down every other documentary and film maker's requests to make a work about her life – but also came on board as an executive producer. She even helped choose Bamber to play her, and spent time with the actor so that she could capture her character as accurately as possible.

"I don't usually want people to see the real me," Bamber-as-Moss says at one point on screen. "To go inside, that's precious, isn't it?"

So what led Moss to greenlight this particular production?

Director Lucas says he first approached Moss about the film "the old-fashioned way" with a letter sent to her through the post. He tells the BBC it "outlined who I was and why I thought this [her sitting for Freud] might have been such a critical, sea-change moment in her life, setting out my artistic, filmic vision for the movie." He adds: "The film gods must have been looking down on to me favourably because she responded very quickly, and before long we were putting things together."

"I pondered what two cultural titans may have talked about," he explains of what drew him to the premise,"and what they found so intriguing and recognisable in each other". He adds that the setting of '00s London, which is evoked in montages of fashion shows, backstage parties and paparazzi pictures from the time, also attracted him to this chapter in Moss's life: "At the time of the painting, London was a place fizzling with creativity, hedonism and a sense of togetherness." The timeline also jumps forward to 2004, to allow the film........

© BBC