Mike Leigh: Screenwriters’ Lecture

Mike Leigh, screenwriter and director behind iconic British films Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake and Naked, has described the act of making a film as a “journey of discovery”.

Speaking as part of BAFTA’s latest Screenwriters’ Lecture Series, Leigh elaborated on this idea, saying: “I’ve never made a film yet, and I think I never will, where what we wound up with was in any sense what I thought we might wind up with. Because, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about discovering it.”

• Read the transcript from the event

The director, whose 2024 project Hard Truths was nominated for several film awards including BAFTA’s Outstanding British Film, has been a stalwart of the film industry for over 40 years. A champion of collaborative working, he has now pulled back the curtain on how he works in an open and honest lecture to other aspiring filmmakers:

A major part of Leigh’s work throughout the years has been to spotlight real life issues in a way that is authentic and impactful. As he describes it: “I am exclusively concerned with putting on the screen or the stage real people like we all are, real issues, real relationships.”

But how does Leigh ensure this authenticity for the stories he tells, and worlds he creates?

Leigh says: “It’s about collaborating. Collaborating with actors to create characters, to find characters, to build those characters…  To explore the characters’ worlds, activities, their work, build their relationships and back story, et cetera, et cetera, and then to distil that into a structured and finally, a precise piece of work.”

Leigh also shared that full crew collaboration means everyone involved in his projects is a part of “preparing the world of the characters, and everything to do with [them]”. That, along with his process of writing scenes through rehearsal, means that when it comes to shooting it is all very real.

The director says: “If you were to visit a shoot, on a particular day, you would see precise action… Complex action of all kinds. But performed by actors with confidence in a relaxed way, very much actors in character, actors not playing themselves, actors going into character and really doing the character in question.”

Seeing his role as writer and director as two parts of a whole is a major part of how Leigh works.

“For me, personally, and this is only personal, there is absolutely no dividing line between my function as a writer and my function as a director. They are inextricably intertwined and they are one function,” he says.

The effect of this approach is that all the decisions; from the structure, meaning, emotional quality and dialogue of the film, to “the responsibility [the director has] for the performances and the communication with other artists behind the camera” are all part of a whole. “There’s no dividing line,” says Leigh.

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