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1. He works in a unique way

It’s often said that Leigh’s films are all improvised, but that’s not the case. “That’s not it at all,” says Leigh. “It’s not about naturalism, it’s about realism. It’s about getting to the essence of what’s real.”

Leigh spends weeks with his cast prior to filming, piecing together the characters from people his actors have met. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who stars in Secrets & Lies and Leigh’s latest, Hard Truth, says: “The process starts with a list of people you know from real life… He whittles away the list until you land on three to five people. Then you merge those characters together and you start building [the character] from their very first memory to the age they’re going to [be in the film].” The method creates characters that have lives outside the film, which is why his work always has such a real quality to it.

Talking Movies talks to Mike Leigh about Hard Truths

2. He's very funny

You may think of Leigh’s films as gloomy. Vera Drake is about a woman performing illegal abortions. Secrets & Lies is about a woman discovering her birth mother is not what she expected. Naked is about a man who hates the world. But there’s always humour.

“All my films are tragicomedies, because life is hilarious and tragic,” says Leigh. “I don’t make films… where there’s only one way to react. My first film, Bleak Moments, I’ve sat with audiences where you can’t hear a word because they’re laughing all the way through. And I’ve sat with audiences where you think you’re in a morgue.”

When he puts comedy at the fore, he’s very, very funny. Mark remembers watching Leigh’s camping comedy, Nuts in May, while recovering from a back injury: “I laughed so I hard I nearly dislodged all the work of the back surgery.”

3. He does big things on tiny budgets

When Leigh starts a new film, even he doesn’t know what it’s going to be about. “For me, the journey of making the film is the journey of discovering what it is,” says Leigh. It all comes out of that process with his actors.

Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party.

The downside of that is his budgets are usually small, to minimise risk. There have been three instances where he’s worked with bigger budgets, always on period films – Topsy Turvy, about the lives of composers Gilbert and Sullivan, Mr Turner, about the artist JMW Turner, and Peterloo, about the Peterloo massacre.

“In all three cases, we were able to say: ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and therefore we got bigger budgets,” says Leigh. “Normally, I can’t tell you anything.”

4. He brings the best out of actors

“It says a lot that many of his actors return time and time again,” says Ellen. “You wouldn’t do that if you had a horrible time.” There’s a long list of actors who’ve worked with Leigh multiple times. Leslie Manville is his most frequent collaborator, with seven films, but the likes of Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins, Alison Steadman, Imelda Staunton and Marianne Jean-Baptiste have all worked with him multiple times.

He gets superb performances from people and a number of his actors have earned Baftas and Oscar nominations. “There’s nothing else like it,” says Jean-Baptiste. “Nobody works in this way, other than Mike… It’s like magic.”

5. He holds up a mirror to British life

Leigh looks at all parts of British life for his work. His films have explored many lives that are nothing like his own. Hard Truths, for example, is about a working glass Black woman of Jamaican origin. “I draw not only on people’s creative instincts, but on their experience and knowledge… I’m happy to learn. For me, it’s a learning curve as much as anything else.”

He's never worked outside Britain because there is no shortage of stories here. “I am committed to what we do here, to making independent British films,” he says.

6. He's political, but subtly so

Leigh and Ken Loach are inarguably the two biggest British independent filmmakers. While they have similarities, there are major differences, particularly in their approach to politics. “Leigh’s films are political, but they don’t preach,” says Sean Baker, director of Anora, and a Mike Leigh fan. “I’m not being disparaging of Ken Loach, but Mike Leigh’s is a very objective and non-partisan approach to politics. Even Vera Drake, it tackles abortion, which is probably the most politicised subject matter in the world, but its main theme… is family secrets.”

Mike Leigh pictured in 2021.

Ellen says Leigh’s is the politics of understanding. “Leigh’s films are political,” she says, “but it’s this thing of creating compassion for people in real life.”

7. He's still doing interesting work in his 80s

Leigh is now 81, and he’s still producing brilliant films. Hard Truths has been nominated for two Baftas, for Outstanding British Film and Best Actress for Marianne Jean-Baptiste. He’s directed some of the best British films of the past five decades. If there’s one thing he’d still like to do, it’s make something without worrying about money.

“What I would love to do – or perhaps at this stage of my career, I should say what I would like to have done – is to have a much bigger budget,” he says. “Not hugely… but if I wanted to make a film about a wedding, with all those characters, I couldn’t do it with the budgets we’ve got.” Ellen says, simply but insistently: “Give Mike Leigh more money to make films!”

Mike Leigh talks about the moments that had the greatest impact on him on This Cultural Life

To hear more from Ellen and Mark's interview with Mike Leigh, and their exploration of his films, listen to the episode in full on 大象传媒 Sounds.