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.