No filmmaker works quite like Mike Leigh. The British auteur famously begins each project without a completed script, preferring to start with a glimmer of an idea before spending weeks rehearsing with his actors. The collaborators find the story through that rehearsal process, allowing each actor to have a real creative stake in the direction their character takes. The process has yielded incredible results, as Leigh’s filmography is filled with classics like “Secrets & Lies,” “Topsy-Turvy,” “Hard Truths,” and the upcoming “Tender Loving Care,” which recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
During the festival, IndieWire and Bleecker Street partnered to host a dinner celebrating “Tender Loving Care.” Leigh was joined at the event by “Tender Loving Care” stars Marion Bailey, Kate O’Flynn, Paul Jesson, and Alice Bailey Johnson, all of whom have worked with him on multiple occasions. In a conversation moderated by IndieWire Editor-in-Chief Brent Lang, Leigh and the cast explained the unique creative process that led to one of the year’s best films.
“It’s a little bit hard to define,” Leigh said when asked about his starting point for each movie. “It’s an idea or a feeling. In the case of this film it was the spirit of the thing. The feeling about positivity.”
Leigh went on to explain that the collaborative nature of filmmaking separates it from other art forms, as great films inherently have to result from lots of people working together.
“We make these films in the same way that painters paint pictures and novelists write novels and poets and musicians make music. You discover what the piece is by embarking on the journey of making it,” he said. “But here it’s not the solo artist in the studio, it’s about the work that we share. For me it’s about having a feeling of the spirit and the sense of possibilities. I don’t know where we’re going to wind up, but I then invite different actors to take part.”
Each of the actors went on to recount their own introduction to Leigh’s process and explained why they keep working with him again and again.
“To me, it wasn’t alien, it was absolutely revelatory,” Bailey said, recalling her six films and two stage plays with Leigh. “I suddenly thought ‘Oh, that’s how you do it. Now I get how to act.’ I just want to do this all the time.”
“I’ve done four films [with Leigh],” O’Flynn added, explaining that she initially thought every great director worked this way. “I realized how rare it was in the years after it, and how brilliant it was.”
“I’ve been in five films,” Jesson said, “I absolutely love the sense of adventure of setting off on a project about which you really don’t know anything.”
Johnson, who is a relative newcomer to Leigh’s ensemble compared to her co-stars echoed their sentiments, saying “It’s so freeing for an actor. You just feel really trusted, and that’s so important for us.”
Watch the complete panel conversation in the video above.
