Golden Globe Winner SALLY HAWKINS: The Hollywood Interview

Actress Sally Hawkins.


SALLY HAWKINS ON THE VIRTUES OF BEING HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
BY
Alex Simon

Editor's Note: This article appeared in the November issue of Venice Magazine.

English actress Sally Hawkins got her first break in cinema from iconic director Mike Leigh in his film All or Nothing in 2002, and soon followed with work in Leigh’s acclaimed Vera Drake two years later. It was heady stuff for the young actress, who’d just graduated England’s revered drama school, The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a few years before. Born in London April 27, 1976, Sally made her screen debut on the British television hit Casualty in 1999, with work on the comedy smash Little Britain, as well as fine supporting work in Layer Cake (2004) with Daniel Craig, and The Painted Veil (2007) with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. She also appeared in Woody Allen’s final UK production, Cassandra’s Dream, opposite Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell.

Sally headlines social realist Mike Leigh’s latest kitchen sink slice of English life, Happy-Go-Lucky, playing Poppy, a free-spirited young Londoner who always manages to keep her chin up and smile, even during life’s most discouraging moments. Shot with Leigh’s signature fly-on-the-wall style, Happy-Go-Lucky marks another impressive entry into this unique filmmaker’s cinematic canon, and boasts a star-making turn from the charming and radiant Miss Hawkins, who took time to speak with us during a recent stopover on this side of the Pond. Here’s what was said…

Mike Leigh really gave you your first break.
Sally Hawkins: Yeah, without him, I don’t know where I’d be. I really mean that. He’s phenomenal. He doesn’t suffer fools, and he’s completely honest, and just a really lovely man. He has no fear, and just says what he feels. You so often in life have people who are afraid of hurting your feelings or sort of approach you from around the side. Mike is just straight-on. In this business especially, it’s so refreshing.

I think we need more blunt instruments like him in the film world, and in general.
Yes, he’s honest and his films reflect that, and there are fewer and fewer of those kinds of films, aren’t there?


Sally and Eddie Marsan take the most neurotic driving lesson in cinema history in Happy-Go-Lucky.

His process that creates that honesty is very interesting, combining rehearsal with improvisation. Tell us a bit about that.
We start out with nothing, no script, nothing. He gets a collection of actors together and they flesh out the story. With something like Topsy-Turvy or Vera Drake I think they were more set ideas, but with Happy Go Lucky and All or Nothing, we start with one-on-one work with Mike, where you’re sort of building up the character and—I don’t know how else to put this—but he’s sort of plugging into your brain and sucking out everything that he needs: very detailed notes. He sorts out what he wants and what he needs. Whether you’re aware of it or not as an actor, he knows vaguely where he wants you to go. I was aware very early on that he was looking for someone who was open and high energy and full of life, love and positivity, who had a sense of humor and naughtiness about them (laughs). And that was quite apparent from early on.

So there wasn’t even a seed of your character to begin with in his head.
No, I think he just knew he wanted to follow someone who had a certain kind of energy and put it up on the screen. And the character that he wanted me to explore, he wanted to have those traits.

Just being around you this briefly, you really radiate positive energy and happiness. Was there a lot of you in this character?
I think there is, yeah. Definitely when life is going well, and I’m sitting in the Los Angeles sun (laughs), I have that same kind of positivity! But early on, he establishes a strong line with you that there’s you, and then there’s your character, and there’s a danger that if you allow yourself to believe that they’re you, it can get into some shaky territory. So he always refers to the characters in the third person, for example, when he’s working with you, just to make sure that line is there. You’ll take with Mike alone, and he’ll ask what was going on with your character in that particular scene, and you’ll also refer to them in the third person. So that line is maintained throughout. Before and after (the scene) he’ll ask you to warm up into your character.

How do you do that?
It gets easier as you progress through rehearsal. Initially, it might take half an hour or an hour before you realize that they’re there and you get a handle on the character, but towards the end of rehearsal, you find that you get better at finding the character, perhaps it’s just down to finding a particular gesture. Then by the time you’re filming, the whole process takes thirty seconds, and you’re there.

How long do you actually rehearse before you shoot?
It’s a six month rehearsal period before Mike shoots. He creates these incredibly real, rich, complex characters. They’re as close to real people as possible. You create them from birth, really. Then Mike takes the time to refine them, build them, and write them basically.

Sally and director Mike Leigh relax on the set.

It sounds like a very complex process.
It is complex, but it makes sense when you’re doing it, and it’s a lot of work, but it’s the most exhilarating thing for an actor, and it’s the most secure feeling I’ve had as an actor, because every single thing, every beat has a root, it has a reason for being there. It’s just so tight by the time it gets to filming, because it comes from this organic process. It’s like a piece of tapestry where you know every single stitch and every beat. I’m just full of metaphors today! (laughs)

How long was the actual shoot?
Four months, we overran slightly. So the whole process is the better part of a year, really.

What’s so fascinating is that you’re describing an epic filmmaking process that Mike Leigh has, for what seem to be “kitchen sink” films that most people would guess are shot and rehearsed in about 3-4 weeks.
Yes exactly, it feels like an epic, even though the tiniest moment might be happening on the screen, there’s this really thick, meaty thing behind each beat of the story.

Leigh and Ken Loach are sort of the two leading social realist filmmakers who have documented Britain since the ‘60s, where you feel like a fly on the wall watching them. In the U.S. we had Robert Altman, John Cassavetes and we still have Sidney Lumet, but most filmmakers aren’t doing things like this anymore.
Mike’s a huge fan of Robert Altman and Cassavetes, It’s fascinating to hear Mike speak about that: his influences, and what he’s hung on to from them, and then how he’s taken their methods and sort of put them through his own filter, so to speak.

Let’s talk about your background. Your parents are children’s book authors and illustrators.
Yes, and it was wonderful growing up and watching them collaborate: my Mom might do the rough drawings, and then my Mom might do the final drawings, or vice-versa. Then they both work on the text together. My Dad wrote a lot of the books, because my Mom was always trying to run around and do everything else, like manage my older brother and me when we were growing up (laughs).

Is your brother artistically-inclined, as well?
Yes, he a phenomenal designer and illustrator, and designs web pages.

You studied at RADA. What was that like?
I knew I wanted to go there early on, and enrolled at quite a young age, so I took every course I could. I was like a sponge. It was a good decision, I think, to go there so early, because if I had gone to university first, I might not had been quite so keen and wide-eyed, and putting the tutors up on pedestals, which is where they should be. It was a fabulous introduction to all these different techniques: Stanislavski, and the Method, and all these phenomenal and unusual texts…it was a really tremendous experience.

It sounds like you knew you were an actor from an early age.
Yeah, although it sounds like a bit of a cliché, I was introduced to acting in primary school. It was either art or acting for me, and when I found I was really most interested in making my friends laugh, once I got to senior school, I was aware of RADA and realized I wanted to pursue that line, instead of university, which is what they were pushing, because it was a very rigorous academic school.

L to R: Sally, Ewan McGregor, Haley Atwell, and Colin Farrell in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream.

You got to work with another icon of cinema recently: Woody Allen, in Cassandra’s Dream.
He was absolutely amazing, and in a completely different way from Mike. He’s a huge hero of mine, and was charming, disarming, and lovely, droll, bright and I’d do anything for him. The only way I can describe his process is working from the outside in, whereas with Mike it’s just the opposite. When Woody sees it, he knows when it’s right. It’s more about it happening and Woody capturing it, whereas with Mike, every moment is accounted for. Both do very few takes, interestingly enough.

I think the part of Happy Go Lucky that’s stuck with me the most is in the opening scene when your character’s bike is stolen, and instead of getting angry, she says “I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye.” It was such a great, non-exposition way to establish who she was.
I’m so glad you liked that. That was actually born out of a five minute improvisation before we shot that scene. That’s one of the lovely things about working with Mike: these bits of magic just pop out of nowhere because of all the work you’ve done beforehand.

Trailer for Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky.

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Eddie Marsan: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Eddie Marsan.


EDDIE MARSAN KEEPS IT REAL
By
Alex Simon

Editor's Note: This article appears in the December/January issue of Venice Magazine.

Actor Eddie Marsan is a true “Cockney,” born in London’s East End in 1968. After initially training as a printer’s apprentice, Marsan attended London’s Mountview Academy of Theater Arts, making his debut on British television in 1992 after years of stage work and paying his dues as a struggling actor. Since then, Eddie Marsan has appeared in over 60 film and television productions, including Gangster No. 1, Gangs of New York, 21 Grams, Vera Drake, The Secret Life of Words, V for Vendetta, Mission: Impossible III, The New World, Miami Vice and British “kitchen sink” icon Mike Leigh’s latest, Happy-Go-Lucky, playing the most abrasive, neurotic driving instructor in cinematic history who tries to get the best of perpetually peppy Sally Hawkins.

Eddie sat down during a brief stopover in the colonies for a chat about his career. Here’s what transpired:

This is your second film with Mike Leigh.
Eddie Marsan: When you work with Mike, you adjust to his method of making a film, so the first time out, in Vera Drake, I had to kind of orient myself to his ways, but the second time I felt much more accustomed to it, and hit the ground running.

The scenes between you and Sally Hawkins in the car were shot with lipstick cameras, so it must felt like the two of you were really alone.
Yeah, Mike using the lipstick cameras was a really brilliant touch, because if those scenes had been shot on a low-loader it would have died. One of the things about the movie is that the characters express their frustrations with each other through the car, and through the interaction with the outside world. So we had to be able to really drive, and be in real traffic while we were interacting with each other. So that really helped, and freed us a lot.

Marsan and Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky.

Your character was so wonderfully neurotic, almost right out of a Woody Allen film. Tell us a bit about Scott.
Well, Scott is a misogynist, and Mike liked the idea of him being someone who used the Internet a lot, and in his case, a little bit of information is a bad thing. So he’s a conspiracy theory nut because he feels powerless in life and he looks for someone to blame. So he’s made a habit of blaming immigrants, the government, and then has all these conspiracy theories to back everything up. He feels powerless against women, so every time he falls in love with a woman he feels that they’re going to trap him, trick him and finally reject him. So he ends up turning violent against them and stalks them, as well.

Mike Leigh is very brave as a filmmaker since many of his characters are extremely unlikable, which is also risky for you as an actor.
Very rarely have I played likable characters. Because I’m a character actor, I’m rarely the character the audience identifies with. I’m usually the best friend or the enemy of the protagonist. So that was of no worry to me. My whole career I’ve gone from playing psychopaths to people who are utterly impotent.

Is that more fun in some ways?
They’re both the same, really. One expresses himself through violence, and the other does so through repressing it.

I know that Mike Leigh is known for his use of improvisation and a long rehearsal period.
Yeah, I sat in a room with Mike for three months before I met anybody else, just building the character of Scott, the different aspects of his life, the different jobs he would’ve worked in, what his parents would’ve been like, his grandparents, his early relationships. Then one morning Mike said “You’ve got to go pick up this girl for a driving lesson.” I had no idea that I was picking up Sally Hawkins! (laughs) Mike had been working with her for a year, and I was kept completely in the dark about all of it. I thought the character I was creating was going to be the next Travis Bickle, and if you look at Scott, he could be that. So then Mike put me in the car with Sally, who I’ve known for eight years, in the character of Poppy, suddenly you’ve got a comedy. I mean, if you put Travis Bickle in a car with Goldie Hawn, and said “Have a driving lesson,” that’s a Woody Allen movie instead of a Martin Scorsese movie. So that’s what it was like.

When you were building Scott’s backstory, did you come up with a specific presenting cause for his neurosis?
It was just a matter of being unsuccessful in life, and bitter because of it. I never worked out specifically that it was his parents, as such. He just didn’t fit in anywhere. Also, he’d always look for people to control, and as he got older, and people around him matured, they became less and less able to be controlled. So he felt more and more powerless. If you watch the film, he begins thinking he can control Poppy, and she winds up controlling him, and that’s been the pattern of his life.

Marsan as Scott in Happy-Go-Lucky.

Well, I absolutely wanted to strangle you throughout the entire film!
(laughs) That’s the highest compliment you could pay me. Thanks very much!

You mentioned that you’ve known Sally for eight years.
Yeah, we did Vera Drake together and also a short film, plus being London stage actors our paths always crossed.

That brings up an interesting point: most of the actors from Europe that I’ve interviewed always emphasize that film and theater is a community on the other side of the pond, where as here, it’s much more of a business.
Yes, I agree with that absolutely. We all know each other and you have a different system in Europe because you have drama schools, so you all come out together, go through unemployment and rejection at the same time, and then start finding your feet about the same time. So it’s a very small world. It’s not like here, where you have people coming from all over who find each other in Hollywood. We’ve known each other from the beginning.

And even when someone reaches superstardom, the most recent example from the UK being Daniel Craig, they seem to stay humble and never forget their roots, unlike here, where many people, when they reach that level of stardom, forget where they came from.
Yeah, I think Britain has this quality where the good side of it helps people keep their feet on the ground. The bad side of it, we have this thing called “tall poppy syndrome,” where if the poppy grows too tall, we chop its head off. I’m doing a movie with Mark Strong at the moment, who’s a good friend of Daniel Craig and he said it’s fascinating being at a function with Daniel, where everyone looks at him as James Bond, but to Mark, he’s still just Daniel, and always will be. He’s actually a very lovely, gentle guy. My wife, who’s a make-up artist, did his make-up on The Golden Compass.

You attended the Mountview Academy of Theater Arts, quite a prestigious drama school.
It was a good school, then I studied with a Russian guy for about five years after I left school.

Did he teach Stanislavski?
Yeah, he trained at The Moscow Arts Theater. Then he came to London and started a school. He died about four years ago, but I’ve remained a patron of the school. He gave me some great advice that an actor should be like a mechanic. When a mechanic turns up, he can just open his box and work on any car. That’s what an actor should do, regardless of them different techniques of the director, the different environment on-set, the different characters. He said “I’m going to teach you how to be a professional.” And he did. It took me years to get a job. (laughs) I was unemployed for years. With a face like mine, nobody knew what to do with me, until I turned about 35, then it just took off. I’ve been chasing my face for ten years, really. (laughs) He told me “In ten years time, women are gonna love you, and you’re gonna work,” and he was right on both counts, because my wife loves me.

You were born and raised in East London.
Yeah, and I’ve no history of anything dramatic or traumatic with my family. My dad was a truck driver. My mum was a school dinner lady. Just solidly working class across the board. I served an apprenticeship as a printer, and then when I passed my apprenticeship my boss, who was an alcoholic, said “In twenty years time, you can be where I am.” (laughs) I always knew I was interested in acting and would watch a lot of movies with my dad, who had very good taste in actors: Robert Duvall, Rod Steiger, Gene Hackman, I used to watch all these guys, all the Method guys, and really somehow connect with what they were doing. When I was a kid, a lot of young actors I knew would watch On the Waterfront and study Marlon Brando’s performance, but I was always watching Rod Steiger, thinking that this guy is the real deal. So I decided that I wanted to be an actor, but I had no knowledge of how to make it happen.

Was On the Waterfront the movie that clinched it for you?
Partially, but it was really more British movies, like Ray Winstone in Scum, Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday. These guys came from where I did, spoke like I did, and played it for real. And I thought that was amazing. These people used to drink with my dad, villains like that, in the area where we lived, and that was fascinating to me. So for the first ten years of my career, I was a professional Cockney. Then I did a movie called Gangster No. 1 which is a nice movie, but I knew when we were doing it that this whole Cockney gangster movie genre was eventually going to go out of fashion, and when that happened, all these Cockney actors were suddenly going to find themselves out of work. I decided then to try and be like Rod Steiger, and Alec Guinness and just disappear into parts, not limit myself to playing Cockneys, and work with voice coaches on different accents and dialects so I could expand my range, just to guarantee work, and so many people have helped me do it.

You’ve worked with some amazing directors over the course of your career. Let’s start with Martin Scorsese on Gangs of New York.
That was a fantastic experience, but it almost destroyed my career. I did nine months on it, and had a great storyline with Jim Broadbent, which ended up being cut and I only had one line in the final cut. So at the end of all that, I had no work to show for it and was unemployed for a while. But I loved it. I learned a lot from working with Jim Broadbent, just in terms of how to handle yourself on a film set, a really great example. Daniel Day-Lewis was really fantastic to watch. And Martin was just…one thing I realized watching Scorsese is that he has the enthusiasm of a first-year film student. He never lost that. I realized that a lot of actors fall by the wayside because they’re influenced by under-achieving, unhappy, bitter people. They stop giving 100% because they figure it’s not worth it. But people like Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann, and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu give 110% constantly. They’re as dedicated as they were when they did their first film.

Daniel Craig comes to mind again: when Paul Newman died, he paid tribute to Mr. Newman by saying that when they worked on Road to Perdition, Newman was so dedicated to getting everything absolutely perfect, at a point in his life (late 70s) and career (a legend) when he could’ve phoned the whole thing in. And he remarked about what an inspiration that was.
I think you have to take refuge in it, because this business is so weird. It’s so not like real life, the business side of it. But what is like real life is if you take refuge in the work. It’s very reassuring. If I go home at night, and I work on my script, I’m going to be alright. It allows me to go into work the next day and not be fazed by the fact that it’s Martin Scorsese. As long as I’m doing my work, I’m going to be alright. And if you take refuge in the work, everyone else does as well. It’s a very interesting thing. People who don’t take refuge, who don’t knuckle down, they’re the ones who are fazed by it all.

And they’re usually the ones who are flashes in the pan.
Exactly.

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