For his debut fiction feature Sweet Sue, UK filmmaker Leo Leigh began rehearsals without a script, adapting a process used by filmmakers including, rather famously, by his father, director Mike Leigh.
“The beats of the story are there, but it has no dialogue,” says Leigh of his pre-rehearsal outline, “so that it’s open to interpretation when we come to rehearse it.”
Mike Leigh is renowned for starting his films without a script and alternating between rehearsal and shooting in a process that can take up to six months. For his film, in mid-2021 Leo spent six weeks prior to production in a building in Tottenham, north London with as many of his cast and crew as possible, including cast, cinematographer Simona Susnea, and the costume and art departments.
He then took “everything that’s been improvised and we’ve scripted in the room” and compiles a “conventional” script, giving the actors three weeks before production to learn it.
What has emerged is a drama about a woman back on the dating scene who embarks on a relationship with a man she meets at her brother’s funeral, a mysterious biker with a flamboyant social media influencer son.
Sweet Sue is making its world premiere in the Cinevision Competition at Germany’s Filmfest Munchen today (June 27). Although he has followed his father into filmmaking, Leo says he doesn’t discuss the industry side of the business with Mike but they do talk about cinema and filmmaking.
“I watch first cuts of his stuff and have an input and he had an input on this,” says Leigh of Sweet Sue. But he suggests he has a wide circle of influence and Mike is credited with a simple “Thanks” at the end of the film.
“I’ve got so many friends that are filmmakers and we send each other scripts and cuts, He’s just another one of them,” says Leo. “I like his films a lot. He doesn’t compromise. He’s a guy whose opinion and taste I really respect.”
Short and sweet
Leigh started his career in short documentaries after starting but not completing a course at The Surrey Institute of Art & Design in the early noughties. He made three projects for Vice Films’ Rule Britannia series including 2009’s Swansea Love Story, which was picked up by CNN.
He started developing what became Sweet Sue in 2017 with BBC Film, after then-executive, now-director Eva Yates got in touch having liked his 2016 Bifa-nominated short Mother.
That short had been made with Sally Campbell and Tim Nash’s UK production company Somesuch and the company quickly came on board the feature. It reunited Leigh with the short’s producer Scott O’Donnell, who produced Aneil Karia’s 2020 feature Surge, and Nash also as producer, with Campbell as executive producer.
They brought on Andy Brunskill of SUMS Film & Media, whose credits include Lilting and Sweetheart, to pull together financing and join the hands-on production team.
They secured backing from a slew of indie film executive producers including Oliver Ridge of Blood Moon Creative, who also worked on Joyland, Safitri Widagdo, whose credits include Sweetheart and Love, Sarah, Kathryn Moseley of US-based One Two Twenty Entertainment, who also worked on Joyland, along with films including The Card Counter, Piers Hunt of financier HH5, Pietro Greppi of Lunapark Pictures, which produced Flux Gourmet, and Reinhard Besser of Trigger Films.
Talk don’t act
When selecting his actors in early 2021 with casting director Lara Manwaring, Leigh required performers who felt comfortable with the improvisation-led style. “It’s not just about the acting ability and more about the discussion, about that process,” says the filmmaker. “You pick up on things that they say that give you confidence in the fact that they’ll be able to deal with it. Some actors feel more comfortable with pre-written dialogue – that’s fine, that’s just another gig.”
He settled on Shameless actress Maggie O’Neill for the title role, with Peaky Blinders’ Tony Pitts as her leather-clad love interest. He says they saw 180 actors for the role of Anthony, the social-media-obsessed son, before picking out Harry Trevaldwyn, a 2022 Screen Star of Tomorrow, who was best known for his own social media skits that kept online audiences amused during the pandemic.
“There was never a moment where I thought ‘this is a hurdle’,” says Leigh of working with the newcomer. “If somebody is as prepared and interested as he was, then when you come to shoot the film, you don’t feel like you’re giving notes to fix his performance; you’ve giving notes to enhance it.”
HanWay Films boarded world sales in January 2022 after production wrapped the previous month; while Curzon acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights this year.
Leigh has already reteamed with BBC Film, Somesuch and SUMS for his next feature, “a dark tale about psychosis and counterculture” set in 1969. He says the title is so good it can’t be divulged yet. “I just feel someone will steal it.”
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