'There are many, many directors that I admire, love and respect'
World renowned as a fearless director, a formidable interviewee and generally the maker of pretty miserable films, the grand master of British film Mike Leigh has given us a little time to talk about his surprisingly upbeat new movie Happy-Go-Lucky. So read on and enjoy as Screenjabber's Michael Edwards annoys him by phrasing things not quite clearly enough and he waxes lyrical about the acting skills of his cast and the talents of his favourite filmmakers...
This is the third time you've worked with Sally [Hawkins], did she exceed even your expectations?
Well, in a way no. It's no surprise because however far you go she'll go that much further because she's brilliant. It was just obviously time to put her at the centre of the whole operation really because she's got all that talent and energy and intelligence. She's very funny and very positive.
So is she a fixture in your team now?
Oh yeah, but you know the thing is everyone is once they've done it and it's worked and it's clicked. It's a welcoming family.
Poppy is an incredibly cheerful character. Would you say there's a fine line between someone being very happy and someone being annoying?
I don't even ... I've no concept of the relationship between ... the thing is I don't know what that discussion is about in relation to the film, I have no conception of annoying in relation to Poppy. I can't see what's annoying about her at all and I can't see any logical correlation between annoying and happy, I think it's just another discussion. With all due respect.
No, it's fine, I'd just heard that from people.
Well, people talk all kinds of crap. I mean yes, I've heard that, but I think it's nonsense. I mean, apart from anything else I don't see Poppy as remotely annoying; she seems to me to be a positive, grounded, intelligent, perceptive woman with a great sense of humour. Of course she's got her frivolous side, but the idea that it's in some way about unadulterated happiness as if she'd eaten a lot of magic mushrooms or smoked a lot of dope is rubbish; that's not what the film's about. It's just about someone who is for real and knows how to deal with life and cope with it. But you know, just to be logical, happy is one kind of condition, it's what a person is, but annoying is to do with the OTHER person who finds them annoying. The only people relevant to any discussion about Poppy being annoying are all those people, mostly journalists, of whom I'd say it is THEIR problem that she is apparently annoying but that's nothing to do with Poppy, or the film, or me or anything else.
Are you surprised by people's reactions to the film?
Well, you know, I've made a lot of films and there's always some quirky reactions that are surprising because they're so off the ... but on the whole the truth is that the reaction to the film is not that surprising because people are reacting to what they properly should.
I felt that Poppy was someone I'd like to have as a friend...
[Interrupting] Me too
... and I wondered if that was something you started out with when creating the character?
Well I don't think in those terms, but the film started for me as a kind of general feeling about ... things ... and certainly as I started to explore and discover things and work out what it was that we were up to and I was up to, certainly it made sense to see the idea of this person who is a good person. I mean, I've done GOOD people before — Vera Drake is not dissimilar from Poppy in the sense that she's a good-humoured, warm, loving person who does things for other people. The circumstances of course are entirely different, to say the least, but yeah, absolutely.
Can you be more specific when you say the film is about a "general feeling about things"?
No. NO. Actually, just to answer your question, no because if you want to know what the feeling was all I can say is that's the feeling you can sort of get from the film, the thing that's there in the first place. Because I work very intuitively, because I make films where I don't have to explain and justify things before I do it, I embark upon the journey of discovery which is the making of the film it's kind of ... not vague, but doesn't exist in slogan-ised terms.
Would you recognise that Poppy's very positive outlook on life is not a character we see very often in English film? I mean had she been American I think that would've been something more familiar.
I could agree perhaps with the very general principle of that statement, but I have to say that would suggest that a positive, good person in a Hollywood film would be a very different kettle of fish from the likes of Poppy and this film, because this is not, I hope, whatever it is, I hope it is not a sentimental film or a schmaltzy film or a film that panders to sentimental notions. This is a film that I suppose I would say is in the main tradition of British cinema which is that it looks at real people in a real context in a real way, and I hope it does that. It just so happens that this is about somebody who is positive and the reason that I hope she is multi-faceted is because it's real.
You mentioned earlier that you allow a lot of actor improv, was it the same in this film?
Well I wouldn't ALLOW a lot of improv, that's not the point. I do do that, but that's not what it's about. There is no script, these films are made by creating the characters and exploring the characters. Improvisation isn't just something that one allows or doesn't it is the process by which the action comes into existence, so it's a central part of the operation.
Did anyone come up with any surprises on the shoot?
The whole point of working with actors and doing what I do is that it is an endless cornucopia of surprises, every moment is a surprise and my job is to distill all kinds of surprises into the film which hopefully is a bundle of surprises for you, so yeah all the time. There isn't one anecdote about one surprise, that's how it is all the time. Someone asked me this morning why I do this as opposed to working with a script in a professional way. Well, apart from the fact that this is all I've ever done and I wouldn't know how to do, the real point is that working conventionally is BORING.
What about dealing with the primary school children? Your way of working must have to be slightly adjusted.
Oh it's different, yeah. The first decision was not to have stage school kids, those kids were from that school. The main child wasn't playing himself, I just explained to him his character and he just got it, basically. Those scenes are improvised unusually and you have to approach it appropriately. Generally speaking I have avoided working with, they say avoid children and animals and I have, although there was the famous dog in High Hopes, so it's not something I'm naturally drawn to doing but in this particular context that's what it was about so...
Your process of actively engaging with actors is very special, and unique, what do you make of other people's work and is there another director whose work you admire now?
Well, what I make of other people's work is that there are good films and lousy films! For me that is all about world cinema, and I don't see cinema as being about what we do here and what they do in America, full stop; it's about world cinema as a context. And it's also about world cinema that's been going on for a long time. So in that wider context there are many many, many directors that I admire, love and respect and some of whom who have influenced me. I also think there's a lot of crap that gets made. I'm lucky because people do give me the dosh and let me get on with it and don't interfere, and that's why I'm able to do what I do, but I think what screws up a lot of filmmaking is that films are made by committee and the massive amount of compromising and things that go on means that films are made a thousand times over before they even go out and shoot it and so it kind of degenerates the thing. Also, films are often made with an eye to being like something else, with an eye to being like a Hollywood film or whatever it is — a lot of films are made by misguided notions of what is commercial. Without me slagging off anyone in particular I'd say that applies to a lot of films, not least here in the UK.
But of the films you admire...
Well I mean they're various, I'm a great fan for example ... and I know you want me to talk about British filmmaking but I... I think for example Roy Andersson [who recently released You, The Living] is a great filmmaker and I've got a great mutual fan club with Pedro Almodovar I like him, he likes me, I like his work... but he's a lot camper than me!
• Happy-Go-Lucky is now showing across the UK ... and you can read our review HERE