Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh OBEis an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Artbefore honing his directing skills at East 15 Acting School and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s his career moved between theatre work and making films for BBC Television, many of which were characterised by...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth20 February 1943
independent independent-filmmaking forgotten
Independent filmmaking has always been there and it's not to be forgotten.
country independent odds
There is a great tradition of independent filmmaking in the U.S. that I absolutely respect. There's some wonderful stuff that comes out in this country against all the odds.
real mean independent
I know, that trends and all of those things and formulae that calculate what audiences want to see and what audiences don't want to see and various other demographic demarcations are the eccentric and ludicrous prerogative of Hollywood studios. But out there in the real world - by which I mean the rest of the world where we make truthful organic films, independent films unimpeded by interference - it's not about all those sort of calculating what is commercial. It's about wanting to say things and saying them in a way that will get through to people.
audiences derived education enjoy great pleasure
I've derived a lot of pleasure and education from the theatre. It's great when audiences really enjoy it. It's part of my life.
airplane jumping
jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
hollywood popular successful
There is a popular misconception that film-makers have to look to Hollywood to be commercially successful but this is how we have been conditioned.
anybody concerned films kinds obscure share talk
I am not concerned with making esoteric, obscure kinds of films. These are films that can share and talk to anybody about real things.
insecure acting actors
Some deeply untrusting actors - the kind that need to know exactly what's what and are completely insecure - might be quite good within the parameters of a certain sort of acting.
jobs would-be want
One of the reasons the whole Hollywood way of making films wouldn't work for me is because the way I operate would be anathema to anyone who wants to hold a job down in Beverly Hills.
actors able film
The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.
hollywood film reason
A lot of the reasons that I'm resistant to making films in the U.S. have nothing to do with not doing a film in Hollywood, but rather to do with what I'm committed to working on in the U.K. I feel very committed to the British film industry and infrastructure.
acting actors useless
The kind of acting that's wholly literary or cerebral is wrong. It's useless for me to have actors so much in their heads that they can't be organic.
actors cases process
Very occasionally I hire an actor and get it wrong. The actor just doesn't trust the process or me as fully as I thought they would. In this case, you can be quite sure that if an actor is untrusting, it's got nothing to do with me or the process.
jobs together ensemble
My job apart from anything else is to build an ensemble composed of actors who all come from a secure place so that they can all work together to make the film.