Original-Cin Q&A: Hard Truths' Mike Leigh on Why Casting is Separating Sheep from Goats
At 82, Mike Leigh is far from slowing down. The award winning British director brings us his 23rd film, Hard Truths. The project reunites him with actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste, 28 years after Secrets and Lies, which garnered both of them Oscar nominations.
Hard Truths is a film about Pansy (Jean-Baptiste), a woman who is constantly angry and picks fights with everyone, including her family. The film explores Pansy's pain and the impact it has on her family.
Jean-Baptiste has won a Best Performance Award by the Toronto Film Critics Association and is well on her way to getting an Oscar nod.
Read our review of Hard Truths
Bonnie Laufer spoke with Mike Leigh via Zoom from his home in the U.K. about reuniting with Jean-Baptiste and working on this film.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy in Hard Truths
ORIGINAL-CIN: You bring most of your films here to Toronto to debut. What is it that is so special about the Toronto International Film Festival for you?
MIKE LEIGH: I've been coming to TIFF, as you know, for a long time. First and foremost, like some other festivals and unlike some other festivals, it's an audience festival.
Some festivals aren't really audience festivals, but TIFF absolutely is, and you really feel that there's a buzz when you show your film. When you come with a film to TIFF, you're taking part in the whole experience that audiences are having and you can sort of sense that in the buzz, in the Q and A's and all the rest of it.
Director Mike Leigh
O-C: I do remember covering Secrets and Lies, almost 30 years ago, and being introduced to Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Here you are reunited with this wonderful actress whom you clearly trust.
For people who don't know your process of filmmaking, it's very organic. It feels very real when we meet your characters, and so I wanted to know, when you reunited with Marianne, what was the initial discussion about her character Pansy? You do let your actors develop their characters, but Pansy is so sad and miserable. I was curious to know, what was the jump off point?
LEIGH: It's interesting that you describe it as letting my actors develop their characters. That's true. The fact is, I collaborate with them to create a character from scratch. But very often it's - and it's certainly the case with Marianne in this film - that we make a decision to make a film.
We didn't know what we were going to do. The main thing is we just start working and I never really give a specification of any sort to the actor. I say to the actor, make a long list, as long as you like, about all sorts of women that you know or remember. Some that you may know well, some you hardly knew who they were, whatever.
She talked about a lot of people. And I gradually would say, let's get rid of her. Let's get rid of her. Whittle it down to certain source people and then we build a character drawn from two or three sources, and then we get that on the go. We then are creative with what we do with her, really. So it will sound like a rather mechanical sort of answer to your question, but that is how it works.
O-C: I am sure the actors you work with love having that freedom and that kind of opportunity to collaborate with you.
LEIGH: Obviously what I'm doing is being creative and inventive and imagining possibilities of this character in relation to that character. And I see how it resonates with notions I have, sort of on the go or growing, as to what we are dealing with, or what we need, the spirit of what we want to be doing.
I make films the way people paint paintings, write novels, write plays, write poetry, make music, make sculpture, etc, where the artist discovers what it is he or she is making.
O-C: I think Pansy is one of the boldest and most honest characters you have brought us. I really felt for her and I think too many of us can relate to her.
Sadly, there are so many people in the world who are really miserable but she just lets it all out and gives us permission to enjoy her through your film. Was this in any way taxing on Marianne to play a woman like this?
LEIGH: Marianne is a consummate character actor. I don't work with actors who play themselves. I don't work with so-called method actors who have to be the character and can't go out of character because that's utterly counterproductive, and a waste of time, really.
She is brilliant, and in fact, all the artists in this film are. But she truly upped her game creating this character, going into character, being totally in character, but able to come out of character, be objective about the character, and thus collaborate with me and the others to construct the drama.
So in that sense, it really wasn’t emotionally taxing for her. Of course, it's hard work, and yet she will tell you that Pansy got to her a bit, but not in any way that's dangerous or counterproductive or intrusive. She's a character actor, and she has apart from anything else, unlike Pansy, an enormous sense of humor - which we share, so it’s safe.
O-C: When you bring in your other actors, and because it's sort of improvisational, you have a very long rehearsal period to prepare them to play their characters.
LEIGH: The rehearsal period is not to create the dialogue, it's to create the characters, the background, the premise of the film. But that's when the real stuff happens. Scene by scene, sequence by sequence, location by location.
We go to the location and obviously I work out a rough scenario just before the shoot, sure, but that's not dialogue or anything. We go to the location without the crew and we improvise in character. Then we stop and we deconstruct and reconstruct and rehearse. We script through rehearsal. So the precision about what is on the screen, what you see in the film happens in the location during the period of the shoot. The crew comes back, we shoot it, then we go away again, and we create the next thing and the next location.
That's how it works. So the preparatory period is not about working out the dialogue or the script or anything. It's about creating the premise.
O-C: With the actors who have not worked with you before how do you discuss your process with them?
LEIGH: Most of the actors in this film are new. The core cast, one or two of the supporting actors, have done it before. In all honesty, it takes about five minutes to forget that they're new because they all got a taste of it at the audition.
The auditions are quite detailed, because my job in the audition is very unequivocally to sort out the sheep from the goats, because there are plenty of actors who are quite good actors and they can't do this sort of thing. They're not character actors.
The ones that make it can do that and I very seldom, just very occasionally, make a mistake. But mostly not. They are all like ducks to water, quite frankly, especially the younger actors So it's not really an issue once you get going,
O-C: You bring us such rich and emotional films, getting to the heart of the characters. I know as a director you have to stay objective, but what ultimately moved you most watching Marianne play Pansy?
LEIGH: If you make this kind of film, by which I mean films about real life, real people, real emotions and all those things, it’s hard not to be human and get moved by certain things.
There are plenty of filmmakers who quite legitimately are not remotely moved in the sense that you're talking about, because it's not about that, it’s about something else. In the case of these films, my films, it’s about the people.
Therefore one is telling the story on behalf of the future audience. Therefore my emotions are raw. I respond emotionally to what's going on, and that motivates the dramatic decisions I make. So the question, what moves me most? Everything moves me, because that's what motivates the decisions I make.
O-C: God bless you. You're going to be 82 next month and still going strong. I want to ask you, what keeps you young?
LEIGH: Ha! (Laughs). It's a hard question. I have a walking stick now. I suffer from something called myositis, which is a degenerative autoimmune thing that gets your muscles.
So your question, what keeps me young? I'm young from my neck upwards. (Laughs). But I don't know the answer to that, you know? I don't really like to answer questions like that because it makes you become self-congratulatory, and I don't really want to do that,
But, you know, it's about engaging with life, it's great to work with young people. It's great to have kids and grandchildren and all that helps.
O-C: When you look back at the extraordinary actors you have had the opportunity to work with, who would you want to collaborate with again?
LEIGH: I can't answer that, because if I did, it would be in terrible trouble with people saying, “Oh, you want to work with me. I didn't know that.” Or, ‘Why did you say her and not him, and not me,” and all.
So if you think I'm going to tell you that, you'd be very optimistic. I'm really not going to tell you that. But I plan on making another film this year, so I guess you will just have to wait and see.