Marianne Jean-Baptiste
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“If You Remember That You Are a Creative Artist While You’re Being an Interpreter, You’re Gonna Be All Right”: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Back To One, Episode 327
Marianne Jean-Baptiste is getting accolades and awards for her incredible performance in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. The two last worked together nearly 30 years ago, on Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, for which Jean-Baptiste was nominated for an Oscar. On this episode, she takes us all the way back to her first time working with Mike Leigh, on the play It’s A Great Big Shame, and details for us the ins and outs of working with him on these three projects. She talks about her love of process, how this intense character work fuels her on less actor-centric jobs, why she’s still mad at Leigh […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jan 14, 2025 -
“We Discover What the Film Is When We Watch It”: Marianne Jean-Baptiste on Hard Truths
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is a study in contrasts. At the center of the tale are two sisters, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Chantelle (Michele Austin), who are as dissimilar as possible. While Chantelle, a hairdresser and single mother of two adult daughters, has a cheerful outlook on life, Pansy is brash, gruff and downright mean toward everyone she encounters—from strangers in the grocery store and the local furniture shop to her detached husband Curtley (David Webber) and reclusive son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Over the course of 100 minutes, it’s easy to despise Pansy because of her shockingly short temper and […]
by Tyler Coates on Dec 13, 2024
