Marianne Jean-Baptiste on reuniting with Mike Leigh for Hard Truths

Marianne Jean-Baptiste spoke with us about her lead role in Mike Leigh’s film Hard Truths and building the complicated world of her character Pansy. The film saw her reuniting with Mike Leigh, an experience she was excited for as having worked with him very early in her career fresh out of drama school, she credits his working style to shaping the way she has gone on to develop the characters she plays throughout her career.

In working with Mike she loves the unconventional way he works where the actors are part of the character and script development process. Initially the two of them talked through a long list of people she had met and encountered before honing in on some of the key characteristics and traits of who Pansy might be. Following this, his process becomes incredibly granule in terms of building every element of her backstory down to what would be inside of her cupboards at home which helped her to feel like the character was fully lived in.

Within the film we see Pansy struggling with a lot of anxiety and inner turmoil, yet Marianne felt it important to not self diagnose her, since the character herself wouldn’t have done so either so instead she focused on the emotions and physical feelings instead. Despite the turmoil of the character, she noted that the set itself was incredibly lively and she shared copious amounts of laughter with the rest of the cast between filming scenes finding it helped to break the tension in between.

Watch the full conversation below:

Q&A on the film Hard Truths with actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Moderated by Mara Webster, In Creative Company.

Ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses.