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 Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s, before transitioning to making televised plays and films for BBC Television in the 1970s and '80s. Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."Leigh's most notable works include the black comedy-drama Naked (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA- and Palme d'Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies (1996), the Golden Lion-winning working-class drama Vera Drake (2004), and the Palme d'Or-nominated biopic Mr. Turner (2014). Other well-known films include the comedy-dramas Life Is Sweet (1990) Meantime (1983) and Career Girls (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film Topsy-Turvy (1999) and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). He won great success with American audiences with the female led films, Vera Drake (2004) starring Imelda Staunton, Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) with Sally Hawkins, the family drama Another Year (2010), and the historical drama Peterloo (2018). His stage plays include Smelling A Rat, It's A Great Big Shame, Greek Tragedy, Goose-Pimples, Ecstasy and Abigail's Party.Leigh has helped to create stars - Liz Smith in Hard Labour, Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party, Brenda Blethyn in Grown-Ups, Antony Sher in Goose-Pimples, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Meantime, Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet, David Thewlis in Naked - and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years - including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters - "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent." His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and the Italian Federico Fellini. Ian Buruma, writing in The New York Review of Books in January 1994, commented: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo."Leigh was born to Phyllis Pauline (n��e Cousin) and Alfred Abraham Leigh, a doctor. Leigh was born at Brocket Hall in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, which was at that time a maternity home. His mother, in her confinement, went to stay with her parents in Hertfordshire for comfort and support while her husband was serving as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Leigh was brought up in the Broughton area of Salford, Lancashire. He attended North Grecian Street Junior School. He is from a Jewish family; his paternal grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Manchester. The family name, originally Lieberman, had been anglicised in 1939 "for obvious reasons". When the war ended, Leigh's father began his career as a general practitioner in Higher Broughton, "the epicentre of Leigh's youngest years and the area memorialised in Hard Labour." Leigh went to Salford Grammar School, as did the director Les Blair, his friend, who produced Leigh's first feature film Bleak Moments (1971). There was a strong tradition of drama in the all-boys school, and an English master, Mr Nutter, supplied the library with newly published plays.Outside school Leigh thrived in the Manchester branch of Labour Zionist youth movement Habonim. In the late 1950s he attended summer camps and winter activities over the Christmas break all-round the country. Throughout this time the most important part of his artistic consumption was cinema, although this was supplemented by his discovery of Picasso, Surrealism, The Goon Show, and even family visits to the Hall�� Orchestra and the D'Oyly Carte. His father, however, was deeply opposed to the idea that Leigh might become an artist or an actor. He forbade him his frequent habit of sketching visitors who came to the house and regarded him as a problem child because of his creative interests. In 1960, "to his utter astonishment", he won a scholarship to RADA. Initially trained as an actor at RADA, Leigh started to hone his directing skills at East 15 Acting School where he met the actress, Alison Steadman.Leigh responded negatively to RADA's agenda, found himself being taught how to "laugh, cry and snog" for weekly rep purposes and so became a sullen student. He later attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (in 1963), the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique on Charlotte Street. When he had arrived in London, one of the first films he had seen was Shadows (1959), an improvised film by John Cassavetes, in which a cast of unknowns was observed 'living, loving and bickering' on the streets of New York and Leigh had "felt it might be possible to create complete plays from scratch with a group of actors." Other influences from this time included Harold Pinter's The Caretaker-"Leigh was mesmerised by the play and the (Arts Theatre) production"- Samuel Beckett, whose novels he read avidly, and the writing of Flann O'Brien, whose "tragi-comedy" Leigh found particularly appealing. Influential and important productions he saw in this period included Beckett's Endgame, Peter Brook's King Lear and in 1965 Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade, a production developed through improvisations, the actors having based their characterisations on people they had visited in a mental hospital. The visual worlds of Ronald Searle, George Grosz, Picasso, and William Hogarth exerted another kind of influence. He played small roles in several British films in the early 1960s, (West 11, Two Left Feet) and played a young deaf-mute, interrogated by Rupert Davies, in the BBC Television series Maigret. In 1964-65, he collaborated with David Halliwell, and designed and directed the first production of Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs at the Unity Theatre.Leigh has been described as "a gifted cartoonist ... a northerner who came south, slightly chippy, fiercely proud (and critical) of his roots and Jewish background; and he is a child of the 1960s and of the explosion of interest in the European cinema and the possibilities of television."Leigh has cited Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray among his favourite film makers. In addition to those two, in an interview recorded at the National Film Theatre at the BFI on 17 March 1991; Leigh also cited Frank Capra, Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu and even Jean-Luc Godard, "...until the late 60s." When pressed for British influences, in that interview, he referred to the Ealing comedies "...despite their unconsciously patronizing way of portraying working-class people" and the early 60s British New Wave films. When asked for his favorite comedies, he replied, One, Two, Three, La r��gle du jeu and "any Keaton". The critic David Thomson has written that, with the camera work in his films characterised by 'a detached, medical watchfulness', Leigh's aesthetic may justly be compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Michael Coveney: "The cramped domestic interiors of Ozu find many echoes in Leigh's scenes on stairways and in corridors and on landings, especially in Grown-Ups, Meantime and Naked. And two wonderful little episodes in Ozu's Tokyo Story, in a hairdressing salon and a bar, must have been in Leigh's subconscious memory when he made The Short and Curlie's (1987), one of his most devastatingly funny pieces of work and the pub scene in Life is Sweet..."
Bio:
Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s, before transitioning to making televised plays and films for BBC Television in the 1970s and '80s. Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."Leigh's most notable works include the black comedy-drama Naked (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA- and Palme d'Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies (1996), the Golden Lion-winning working-class drama Vera Drake (2004), and the Palme d'Or-nominated biopic Mr. Turner (2014). Other well-known films include the comedy-dramas Life Is Sweet (1990) Meantime (1983) and Career Girls (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film Topsy-Turvy (1999) and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). He won great success with American audiences with the female led films, Vera Drake (2004) starring Imelda Staunton, Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) with Sally Hawkins, the family drama Another Year (2010), and the historical drama Peterloo (2018). His stage plays include Smelling A Rat, It's A Great Big Shame, Greek Tragedy, Goose-Pimples, Ecstasy and Abigail's Party.Leigh has helped to create stars - Liz Smith in Hard Labour, Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party, Brenda Blethyn in Grown-Ups, Antony Sher in Goose-Pimples, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Meantime, Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet, David Thewlis in Naked - and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years - including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters - "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent." His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and the Italian Federico Fellini. Ian Buruma, writing in The New York Review of Books in January 1994, commented: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo."Leigh was born to Phyllis Pauline (n��e Cousin) and Alfred Abraham Leigh, a doctor. Leigh was born at Brocket Hall in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, which was at that time a maternity home. His mother, in her confinement, went to stay with her parents in Hertfordshire for comfort and support while her husband was serving as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Leigh was brought up in the Broughton area of Salford, Lancashire. He attended North Grecian Street Junior School. He is from a Jewish family; his paternal grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Manchester. The family name, originally Lieberman, had been anglicised in 1939 "for obvious reasons". When the war ended, Leigh's father began his career as a general practitioner in Higher Broughton, "the epicentre of Leigh's youngest years and the area memorialised in Hard Labour." Leigh went to Salford Grammar School, as did the director Les Blair, his friend, who produced Leigh's first feature film Bleak Moments (1971). There was a strong tradition of drama in the all-boys school, and an English master, Mr Nutter, supplied the library with newly published plays.Outside school Leigh thrived in the Manchester branch of Labour Zionist youth movement Habonim. In the late 1950s he attended summer camps and winter activities over the Christmas break all-round the country. Throughout this time the most important part of his artistic consumption was cinema, although this was supplemented by his discovery of Picasso, Surrealism, The Goon Show, and even family visits to the Hall�� Orchestra and the D'Oyly Carte. His father, however, was deeply opposed to the idea that Leigh might become an artist or an actor. He forbade him his frequent habit of sketching visitors who came to the house and regarded him as a problem child because of his creative interests. In 1960, "to his utter astonishment", he won a scholarship to RADA. Initially trained as an actor at RADA, Leigh started to hone his directing skills at East 15 Acting School where he met the actress, Alison Steadman.Leigh responded negatively to RADA's agenda, found himself being taught how to "laugh, cry and snog" for weekly rep purposes and so became a sullen student. He later attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (in 1963), the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique on Charlotte Street. When he had arrived in London, one of the first films he had seen was Shadows (1959), an improvised film by John Cassavetes, in which a cast of unknowns was observed 'living, loving and bickering' on the streets of New York and Leigh had "felt it might be possible to create complete plays from scratch with a group of actors." Other influences from this time included Harold Pinter's The Caretaker-"Leigh was mesmerised by the play and the (Arts Theatre) production"- Samuel Beckett, whose novels he read avidly, and the writing of Flann O'Brien, whose "tragi-comedy" Leigh found particularly appealing. Influential and important productions he saw in this period included Beckett's Endgame, Peter Brook's King Lear and in 1965 Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade, a production developed through improvisations, the actors having based their characterisations on people they had visited in a mental hospital. The visual worlds of Ronald Searle, George Grosz, Picasso, and William Hogarth exerted another kind of influence. He played small roles in several British films in the early 1960s, (West 11, Two Left Feet) and played a young deaf-mute, interrogated by Rupert Davies, in the BBC Television series Maigret. In 1964-65, he collaborated with David Halliwell, and designed and directed the first production of Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs at the Unity Theatre.Leigh has been described as "a gifted cartoonist ... a northerner who came south, slightly chippy, fiercely proud (and critical) of his roots and Jewish background; and he is a child of the 1960s and of the explosion of interest in the European cinema and the possibilities of television."Leigh has cited Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray among his favourite film makers. In addition to those two, in an interview recorded at the National Film Theatre at the BFI on 17 March 1991; Leigh also cited Frank Capra, Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu and even Jean-Luc Godard, "...until the late 60s." When pressed for British influences, in that interview, he referred to the Ealing comedies "...despite their unconsciously patronizing way of portraying working-class people" and the early 60s British New Wave films. When asked for his favorite comedies, he replied, One, Two, Three, La r��gle du jeu and "any Keaton". The critic David Thomson has written that, with the camera work in his films characterised by 'a detached, medical watchfulness', Leigh's aesthetic may justly be compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Michael Coveney: "The cramped domestic interiors of Ozu find many echoes in Leigh's scenes on stairways and in corridors and on landings, especially in Grown-Ups, Meantime and Naked. And two wonderful little episodes in Ozu's Tokyo Story, in a hairdressing salon and a bar, must have been in Leigh's subconscious memory when he made The Short and Curlie's (1987), one of his most devastatingly funny pieces of work and the pub scene in Life is Sweet..."
Tivia:
Most of his work in theatre and film is done without any initial script. He and the actors improvise their characters and the scenes under his overall control.When actors audition for him, he asks them to sit at a table while he observes.Has directed 3 actresses in Oscar-nominated performances: Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Imelda Staunton.His top 10 films of all time are: The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), Tokyo Story (1953), Soy Cuba (1964), The 400 Blows (1959), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), Songs from the Second Floor (2000), Some Like It Hot (1959), Radio Days (1987), Seven Chances (1925) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912).Chairman of the London Film School.He was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1993 Queen's Honours List for his services to the film industry.His family were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Russia).Father was a doctor.Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 50th Cannes International Film Festival in 1997.Mother was a midwife.He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film and television culture.Parents met in 1936 in Manchester.Became a father for the 1st time at age 34 when his [now ex] wife Alison Steadman gave birth to their son Toby Leigh on February 3, 1978.Became a father for the 2nd time at age 38 when his [now ex] wife Alison Steadman gave birth to their son Leo Leigh on August 15, 1981.Has had a beard since March 1967 because he considers shaving "a time-wasting, filthy, irrelevant and resource-wasting habit".Graduated from RADA.His play, "Abigail's Party", performed at the New Ambassador's Theatre, was nominated for a 2003 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Revival of 2002.Became an Associate Member of RADA.Is on record in saying that he thinks the 1969 moon landings were faked.Interviewed in "World Directors in Dialogue" by Bert Cardullo (Scarecrow Press, 2011).His production company is Thin Man Films, founded with the late Simon Channing Williams in 1989, which was a misnomer considering their build and it is still the same now as his new partner is Georgina Lowe..President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in 2012. |
| Name: |
Mike Leigh |
Type: |
Director,Writer,Additional Crew (IMDB) |
| Area: |
All World |
Platform: |
IMDB |
| Category: |
|
Business scope: |
Director,Writer,Additional Crew |
| Products for sale: |
Director,Writer,Additional Crew |
| Last update: |
2024-07-01 03:04:47 |
| Height: |
5' 7' (1.70 m) |
| Biography: |
Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Te |
| Trivia: |
Most of his work in theatre and film is done without any initial script. He and the actors improvise their characters and the scenes under his overall control.When actors audition for him, he asks them to sit at a table while he observes.Has directed 3 actresses in Oscar-nominated performances: Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Imelda Staunton.His top 10 films of all time are: The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), Tokyo Story (1953), Soy Cuba (1964), The 400 Blows (1959), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), Songs from the Second Floor (2000), Some Like It Hot (1959), Radio Days (1987), Seven Chances (1925) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912).Chairman of the London Film School.He was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1993 Queen's Honours List for his services to the film industry.His family were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Russia).Father was a doctor.Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 50th Cannes International Film Festival in 1997.Mother was a midwife.He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film and television culture.Parents met in 1936 in Manchester.Became a father for the 1st time at age 34 when his [now ex] wife Alison Steadman gave birth to their son Toby Leigh on February 3, 1978.Became a father for the 2nd time at age 38 when his [now ex] wife Alison Steadman gave birth to their son Leo Leigh on August 15, 1981.Has had a beard since March 1967 because he considers shaving "a time-wasting, filthy, irrelevant and resource-wasting habit".Graduated from RADA.His play, "Abigail's Party", performed at the New Ambassador's Theatre, was nominated for a 2003 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Revival of 2002.Became an Associate Member of RADA.Is on record in saying that he thinks the 1969 moon landings were faked.Interviewed in "World Directors in Dialogue" by Bert Cardullo (Scarecrow Press, 2011).His production company is Thin Man Films, founded with the late Simon Channing Williams in 1989, which was a misnomer considering their build and it is still the same now as his new partner is Georgina Lowe..President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in 2012. |
| Trademarks: |
Wide range of emotions
Films frequently center on the British working class
Focuses on relationships, particularly families.
Frequently casts Lesley Manville and Timothy Spall.
Protagonists who are intelligent misfits who refuse to conform to society's norms and expectations. |
| Quotes: |
One develops a strange parallel existence that is not to do with oneself but is defined by some journalists. In my case, I'm supposed to be this - how does it go exactly? - "melancholic soul given to brooding silences".
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<hr>
I've long since stopped worrying about how I'm portrayed in the press because ultimately it's not that important. Everyone who knows me knows I do what I do with the greatest integrity.
<br />
<hr>
I mean, I've been to screenings of the film where the laughter came at quite surprising - to me - points. But, you know, people laugh for a variety of reasons - with, or at, or out of embarrassment, or nervousness even. It's not always a function of mirth.
<br />
<hr>
If it's the case that there are a lot of people who can't or don't see my films, I don't really think that's to do with me, or the nature of my films, or neglect of me. It's to do with the continuing problem of the dissemination of British films on British screens. It's to do with the domination of Hollywood. But, do I feel neglected? No, hand on heart, not at all, I feel lucky. I get to make films without even showing a script. To be honest, the fact that I'm allowed to do what I do in the way that I do it never ceases to amaze me.
<br />
<hr>
People say to me, "Oh come on, you could do a great thing with a script." But I've always said no. Everyone will expect the quality and style of the acting to be as good as they are in my other films - and I wouldn't know how to do it. |
| Job title: |
Director,Writer,Additional Crew |
| Others works: |
(1994) TV commercial: McDonalds UK
(9/05) Stage: Wrote / directed "Two Thousand Years", National Theatre, London, England, UK.
(1973) Playwright: "Abilgail's Party"
(2003) Solo DVD commentary for his movie All or Nothing (2002) |
| Spouse: |
Alison Steadman (August 15, 1973 - 2001) (divorced, 2 children) |
| Children: |
Child |
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