The Cast of 'Hard Truths' Discuss Lessons They Learned From Director Mike Leigh | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024 - video Dailymotion

Variety

Director Mike Leigh, along with actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin & David Webber from "Hard Truths" sit down at the Variety Studio at TIFF.

Transcript

00:00For the cast, what have you learned about acting from Mike Lee?

00:06My gosh, I think we were talking about it earlier. The first job that we did together

00:14was a play, a Mike Lee play back in 93. And Michelle was saying that it kind of set her up

00:22from how she works. And it did the same thing with me. It's just about preparation,

00:28and trying to be as organic and authentic as possible and serve the character.

00:36One of the funniest, I still remember once when we were doing an improvisation,

00:39when we were doing the play, and we were laughing. We weren't supposed to be laughing,

00:48but we were laughing at the improvisation. And I remember thinking, I'm in so much trouble now

00:54with Mike. But I remember Mike saying, if you're laughing, it's because you know that it's good.

01:01And I sort of do keep that in the back of when sometimes when I'm laughing at the work,

01:04because I'm thinking, oh, this is just gold. So I do remember that. But I think, yeah,

01:12I mean, it's blowing lots of smoke up, proverbials. But I've learned loads from him.

01:22I've learned loads from her.

01:27Yeah. For me, the main thing, I think, is the trust and confidence in strong characters,

01:38in the sense of when something is built. The history of the character I played earlier in

01:46this felt so strong and real to me that then I felt he could take over.

01:51And I could trust that. And that was a tremendous feeling to have, that trust. Because sometimes,

01:57I think, in film and in TV, things can be so rushed. And you get there and one day,

02:04OK, this is going to be your wife. This is your family. And everything, you just, you know,

02:08and this was the other way around. We had such a strong creation and a concentration on the

02:15characters. So when we're working, we're working with real people that your character knows.

02:21And that, then you know that when you get to that level of reality in terms of, you know,

02:28that it works, then you just let that go and it works. And that's what I learned.

The Cast of 'Hard Truths' Discuss Lessons They Learned From Director Mike Leigh | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024

Category

Transcript

Recommended