Marianne Jean-Baptiste on not knowing she was the ‘Hard Truths’ lead until seeing it, Mike Leigh’s unique writing style
Oscar nominee Angela Bassett and Oscar winner Sam Rockwell hosted a private screening for Mike Leigh‘s “Hard Truths” at the Linwood Dunn Theater in LA Tuesday night. The audience filled with Academy members, press, and other invited guests gave actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste a standing ovation as she sat down with film critic and podcaster Kate Walsh for a post-screening Q & A.
Reunited with Leigh for the first time since she earned an Oscar nomination for “Secrets & Lies,” Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. The film may sound dark, and there are plenty heavy moments, but there is also an abundance of laughter as the actress delivers one zinger after the next aimed at whoever stands in front of her.
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The actress described that Leigh’s writing process is so unique that she didn’t even know she was the film’s lead until she saw it for the first time. “It could have been about a hairdresser who had a really difficult sister. It could have been about a plumber who didn’t get along with his wife,” she explained. “I kind of knew that I wasn’t going to just be doing two scenes, because he flew me from Los Angeles to London for five-and-a-half months, so I knew to some extent she would feature, but not like that.”
Another surprise for Jean-Baptiste was the film’s comedic elements, which had gone over her head until it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September. “You have to view the world how she views it, so I was quite shocked when we screened the film in Toronto,” she explained. “The two times I had seen it before that, I was kind of upset. I was really anxious. When I saw it in Toronto and people were laughing, I thought, ‘What are they laughing at? She’s really suffering!’ It took adjusting to the fact that that is funny. I started hearing lines that she was saying and thinking, ‘Oh my God! How can she say that?’ Then I respected the work with Mike even more, because it’s almost like you weren’t there.”
SEE Marianne Jean-Baptiste (‘Hard Truths’) climbs into Best Actress top 5 at Oscars
Mike Leigh’s writing process consisted of hours and hours of Jean-Baptiste improvising in character, and then winnowing down the best parts to fill in the script. “Sometimes these bloody improvisations would last for three or four hours,” she explained. “He would then go, ‘OK, start from this point in it,’ and we would start it again. He would say, ‘You didn’t say that last time, you said this,’ and I would go, ‘Oh my God, the word police.’ Then you would repeat, and repeat, and repeat it until it was solid. Somebody would take notes and write it down. But because it comes from such an organic place and it’s rooted in emotion, you remember it.”
“Pansy’s whole thing is she’s very observant. She sees things that regular people see, it’s just her attitude towards them. We’ve seen a baby with a big bow and go, ‘Aww, look at that. Isn’t she lovely.’ Pansy would be like, ‘How stupid. The baby’s bald.'”
Jean-Baptiste said that prior to rehearsals, she was told to come in with a list of women that she knows. “It could be someone that you see at the local bakery who is interesting or has something about them,” she explained. “You can’t be related to them. You turn up, you’re in a room on your own with Mike Leigh. I think I had about 140 people on my list, and you go through each one and talk about them at length. Sometimes it might be, ‘Well, she’s got this really funny walk.’ He goes, ‘What do you think her name is, then?’ I say, ‘I think her name is Linda.’ You do this with every single person on the list, and then the list gets smaller and smaller until you end up with, say, five people. Then he’d say, ‘That’s going to be our starting point.'”
“Then, you start doing these exercises where you merge these characters together until they become one,” the actress continued. “At that point, you start creating a new character, from their first memory to the age you see them in the film. What school did they go to? You’d have to go find it in London. You’d have to go find the house that they grew up in in London. You’d have to work out the bus route, or whether they were able to walk to school. It’s the early stages of building a parallel universe, where this person, Pansy, exists with all of her memories.”
Gold Derby’s odds currently predict Jean-Baptiste will earn her second Academy Award nomination for “Hard Truths.” Leigh’s script is also in contention, currently ranked seventh for Best Original Screenplay. The film also stars Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown, and Jonathan Livingstone.
Bleecker Street will give “Hard Truths” a limited theatrical release in New York on Dec. 6, 2024, followed by a nationwide release on Jan. 10, 2025.
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