Interview with Hard Truths actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste & Michele Austen

Veteran director Mike Leigh’s latest film, Hard Truths, stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy, a woman grappling with both mental and physical pain who is often on the verge of lashing out. Although Pansy is challenging to be around, her sister, Chantelle, played by Michele Austen, refuses to give up on her. Chantelle offers comfort, hoping Pansy will eventually let her guard down enough to accept it. We spoke with Jean-Baptiste and Austen to learn more about the film.

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Marianne, Pansy is a layered, complicated woman. I imagine she was exhausting to play. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
It was exhausting to play her, but it was also exhilarating and exciting, sometimes terrifying. It was just great to be able to get my teeth into someone so complex.

I’m sure Pansy has frightened away many people over the years, but Chantelle’s love for her is so strong. Michele, what was it like creating a character who can love somebody who is so prickly?
Well, it’s quite easy because we spent so much time talking and developing the relationship between the two of them, that Chantelle knows the history of her sister. But I think that always in families, there are family members who might be hard to love, but we love them nonetheless, and we excuse some of their faults. They [Pansy & Chantelle] have been a family unit for so long, and it’s such a small unit. Some of the stuff the audience don’t know that we know, is how much they have been together, the Sunday meals and all of that sort of thing. There’s a lot of warmth there. It wasn’t hard to develop that. We meet those people in life who are patient or a bit more patient than we are. Chantelle is one of those people. I don’t know if I would be like that, to be honest. I might just send Christmas cards to Pansy, but I think Chantelle wants to look after her sister. They’ve both been affected by the loss of their mom, and she’s very aware of what that situation was like for Pansy, so she’s dealing with her own guilt around that as well.

Marianne, what was it like working with Mike Leigh again after so many years? How did the experience change from your first time working with him?
He works in the same way. So, it was really about me unknowing what I know from working in a more conventional way, being able to trust again, throwing myself into the process, and just discovering that world, you know, being open and collaborative.

Michele, this is your fifth time working with Mike. What is it like to have that working relationship?
I feel very lucky and very blessed to have worked with him so much, and it means a lot that he has trusted me enough to bring me on board with this one and get to hang out with my mate and do this. It really has been a wonderful experience. And as Marianne says, you know, you do work the same way, even when you’re doing a small or smaller role, and I’ve been brought in to do smaller roles. So, it is a very secure feeling when you are back in the room with him. It’s really exciting and its hard work, but it is the best hard work. You know, no one works in the kind of detail that he works, and I feel honoured to be here.

Is it true that when you start work with him, you bring in a list of people who might inspire your characters?
Michele: Absolutely. You came in with your list. I think I had over 130. It might be somebody that you know very well, or it might be somebody you regularly see walking down your street but who has got something really interesting about them that you’ve noticed. It just had to be somebody that you can describe, and you can have an idea about what their life is like. Or, you know, it might be somebody you know that serves you in the shop, and they’ve got a really unusual voice, you know, just something. By the time you come to create your character, it’s usually based on around about three of those people.

You go through this incredible process of layering, building, connecting, and discovering everything about your characters. Then, when you go to shoot, is the dialogue improvised based on what you have already built between your characters?
Marianne: In this case, we rehearsed for three and a half months. There’s the initial part of creating the character, which you do in isolation with him. Then there comes another part where, for example, you might go into the rehearsal room one day, and Michele will be sat there, and he’ll say, okay, these two are going to be sisters, and then you build a parallel history. Then one of them’s married, so you meet the husband, and you build that. And then you start building the world. You start moving around, embodying the characters. But you build the world – what did they do at Christmas? What’s the tradition?

Michele: We choose houses. You choose a part of town, you choose where they live, what they do as a job, so it’s really layered. Then, by the time we get to shooting, we’re not improvising on camera. We do improvisations on set, but we do them over and over again until we hone it down to the scene. Mike is editing and taking things away, adding things, and maybe shifting things around. It’s never that the camera is on us, and we just go for it. It’s very scripted by the end.

It sounds like the ultimate form of make-believe, more so than with other filmmakers.
Marianne: Totally, you get to use your imagination. We’re like kids.

Michele: It’s the best thing, but what makes it easier is that it is a real house with things in the cupboard and things that work. You can really immerse yourself in it. You can be in it. What’s really important to say is we’re always being the character, and then we come out of character. Mike is really clear about making sure that those people are over there, and we are actors.

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Interview by Cara O’Doherty

HARD TRUTHS is at cinemas from January 31st