Happy 77th Birthday, Mike Leigh! Born today in 1943, this English writer and director of film and theatre studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, East 15 Acting Schoo.
After this, Leigh furthered his studies at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and London Film School. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s.
Among his credits, Leigh is best known for writing and directing the 1996 British drama/comedy film 'Secrets & Lies'.
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a successful black eye doctor, seeks out her birth mother. However, she's shocked when her research leads her to a lower-class white woman, Cynthia Rose Purley (Brenda Blethyn).
At first Cynthia denies the claim, but she eventually admits to birthing Hortense as a teenager, and the two begin to bond. However, when Cynthia invites Hortense to a family barbecue, Cynthia's already tense relationship with her family becomes even more complicated.
Premiering at the 49th Cannes Film Festival in May of that same year, the film won the Palme d'Or. The following year, it won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film at the 50th British Academy Film Awards in late April 1997.
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."
Leigh's films and stage plays, according to British theatre 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 has been active from 1963–present.
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