00:04106, take one. Mark.
00:06Hi, I'm Mike Lee.
00:08I'm Alice Bailey-Johnson.
00:10I'm Paul Desson.
00:11I'm Marion Bailey.
00:13And I'm Kate O'Flynn, and we are Tender, Loving Care, and we're speaking with The Hollywood Reporter.
00:27Thanks, everyone, for joining me.
00:29I'm Saya Rankin with The Hollywood Reporter, and I am here with the gang from Tender, Loving Care.
00:36I guess I can't even ask you anything until I ask you if you're excited about the Emmys.
00:41We'll get that out of the way.
00:42Yes, very excited.
00:44Really proud to fly the flag, Widow's Bay with the crew.
00:47Yeah, great.
00:49You do have, I will say, speaking of, another great dancing scene.
00:54In this movie, is that sort of a prerequisite for you now, or how did that?
00:59I guess you probably wrote this before you knew she was going to kind of come out swinging, dancing in
01:07Widow's Bay.
01:08No, I think my dancing days on screen probably should end there.
01:13That's it.
01:14Yeah, otherwise I'm just a one-trick, you know, one-trick pony.
01:17So, no, that'll stop, but no.
01:20It was, yeah, that sort of came out of fear in this one, I think.
01:24What do you mean?
01:25The Irish dancing did anyway.
01:26Oh, because you're...
01:27Because was it, like, kind of ad-libbing, dancing, I assume, much like most of it, and...
01:32I mean, you know, we just kind of...
01:34Yeah, just the music playing, we were left to our own devices.
01:38We got in the zone of the characters and, you know, the Irish dancing came out, I don't know.
01:44Everybody loves a jig.
01:46Yeah, exactly.
01:46Mike, my opinion is that this movie has your most good-natured characters of all of your films, but I'm
01:56curious where you see this in the spectrum of...
02:00So, I can see that. I think that's... I think it would be eccentric for anyone to disagree with that.
02:06Not that there aren't good-natured characters in previous films, not least amongst which is Happy-Go-Lucky, which Kate
02:13was also in.
02:14But, no, obviously my last film, Hard Truths, had a kind of, you could say, negative edge to it by
02:23the very nature of the central character played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
02:30Pansy.
02:31But, you know, I hope all my films are a celebration of how we are and what life is about
02:38and, you know, the joy and pain of living.
02:42And this film's no exception.
02:44Of course.
02:44I mean, there's pain in this film too.
02:46But, you know, I started, just for myself, with a feeling that the film should express a kind of positivity
02:59and warmth.
03:02And I hope it does, basically.
03:03And I think that's what you're talking about.
03:05Mm-hmm. Yes.
03:06Yeah.
03:06How do you...
03:07So, you have sort of a repertoire, right, of actors that love to work with you and come back and
03:12that you love to work with them again.
03:13But how do you go about picking who's going to come back into your circle for each film?
03:20It's, first of all, just in passing, yes, there is a gang of folk and all these guys here are
03:28part of that gang.
03:30But I'm always up for having other actors too.
03:32I mean, it's not a closed shop by any means.
03:35It's hard to answer that question.
03:37It's intuitive, really.
03:38And you kind of think, oh, that would be good and there's a possibility there.
03:42And how about, you know, it's about time we've got him or her in and, you know, all that sort
03:50of stuff.
03:51It's empirical.
03:51Because we don't know what the film's going to be when we embark on the journey of creating it.
03:57We discover what it is on that journey.
04:00So it's a kind of intuitive, empirical kind of process, really.
04:06For you guys, what felt most different about making this movie as compared to other movies you've made with Mike?
04:15They're all different.
04:17You know, I find I've done, what have I done?
04:20Six films, two plays, two theater plays with Mike.
04:24Paul and I worked together with Mike in 1980 on a theater play called Goose Pimples.
04:29And they've all been a different experience.
04:32I mean, the process of creating them is remarkably similar, isn't it?
04:36But they're all different.
04:40So, you know, this one wasn't especially different.
04:42What would you say was sort of the marker of this one?
04:45What if you were to describe if each one sort of has a personality, what would be?
04:53Warmth, I think.
04:54Warmth and love and care and all of that.
04:58I think, as Mike said, it's not all warm.
05:01But on the basis of a Birdie and Jeff's relationship is a long, very happy marriage with a daughter who
05:12arrived quite late in the marriage after crying for a long time.
05:17And she was a bit of a handful as a child.
05:20But that just led to the bond that they obviously had in their story very strong.
05:29People looking after each other.
05:31Which, of course, the two young women as well are looking out for each other.
05:37And looking after other people.
05:38And, yeah, professionally.
05:40Were you a handful as a child yourself in real life?
05:43Me personally.
05:44Yeah, rotter.
05:45Still am.
05:46Still am.
05:47Yeah, just about stayed on the film.
05:49Yeah, and a nightmare to work with.
05:52Had you guys been, like, good friends before this?
05:54No, we'd never met, had we?
05:56No.
05:56No.
05:58I'd seen, I was Kate, you know, a big fan of what you'd done.
06:02I think, yeah, it was the first time we'd worked together.
06:06And I think we got on it.
06:08She's all right.
06:08Yeah.
06:10I think Mike had a nice, you had a nice little egg.
06:12I thought that, I thought that'd be good.
06:14We could get something out of this.
06:15Yeah.
06:16Yeah.
06:16You seem to have a knack for that.
06:18And we did.
06:18Yeah.
06:19What was, was there a dinner?
06:21Like, what was the kind of first meeting?
06:22Was it working on this movie or was it something sort of more social?
06:26There was a wine and cheese evening for the film.
06:28Fitting.
06:28Okay, fitting.
06:29For the film in the rehearsal space.
06:31And we all just had a chat.
06:32It was quite casual, from what I remember.
06:35Yeah.
06:35And we didn't know that we were going to,
06:36none of us knew what we were going to be doing.
06:39Before we embarked on the work, you know.
06:42So when you say that, you know,
06:44you don't know what the movie's going to be before you get into it,
06:46you mean that quite literally.
06:48That's not hyperbole at all.
06:49Oh, yeah.
06:50No, totally.
06:50Yeah.
06:51Totally.
06:51I mean, I've got ideas and possibilities.
06:53Yes.
06:53But no, I mean, I will say that really the way I make films is the way people paint pictures
07:04and write novels and write plays and make music and write poetry, etc.
07:08Which is, you know, how often have you heard a novelist say,
07:12well, I didn't know what was going to happen and I was interacting with the material
07:15and I suddenly got a clue and I slept on it.
07:18And that's what goes on.
07:19Except that, of course, the actors are making a contribution through the characters
07:24and by discussion and we do a huge amount of discussion,
07:28a huge amount of improvisation in character, a lot of character work and research.
07:33I mean, these guys were out there researching being social workers, you know.
07:37What stood out in your research?
07:39What kind of stood out to you the most?
07:42How hard it is.
07:43How hard that job is, you know.
07:45A totally necessary job, but my God, I couldn't do it.
07:48No.
07:49And it can be a sort of thankless job.
07:54There's quite strong opinions about social workers and a lot of them are quite negative.
08:00You know, they don't receive a lot of praise for what they do.
08:04They're often seen as the bad guys.
08:07But yet, everyone I spoke to, and I think the same for you,
08:11it's like there's a sense of humour that they all have,
08:14arguably sometimes dark,
08:18but you have to have, you know, it's a really tough job day to day
08:25and you have to have an out, you know.
08:28Yes.
08:29It was funny because it was,
08:31what struck me was how all-consuming it is
08:34and also just thinking getting the balance right
08:37because it's not a recruitment drive or a PR exercise for social work,
08:41you know, so it was trying to figure out what, you know,
08:43what effect that would have on characters like Rosie and Amy
08:46sticking in a job like that.
08:48That is, dealing with lots of people's trauma
08:51and what effect does that have on them
08:53and how do they deal with it?
08:55And, yeah, it was, yeah, food for thought.
08:58We see Rosie and Amy doing a lot of kind of coming down
09:03from the end of a hard day, right, in the movie
09:05and how you're blowing off steam with each other
09:07and the Irish jig, et cetera.
09:10But what do all of you do at the end of, like,
09:12a hard day on set or a hard day at work?
09:15What's your sleep?
09:17Watch yourself, yeah.
09:18Each, each, sleep.
09:20Okay.
09:21Yeah.
09:22And a glass of wine.
09:23And sleep.
09:24And sit in a dark room.
09:25Sometimes, you know, it can be quite overstimulating.
09:28For me, it's just like a...
09:31I mean, it's not for me to talk about other films
09:34or other projects.
09:36But for me, one of the main ingredients,
09:41essential ingredients for making a film
09:45and especially important for this kind of film
09:48is you have to have a really harmonious gang of people
09:52on both sides of the camera.
09:54And we did on this film.
09:55It was great.
09:56I mean, there wasn't a single cynic
09:59or there was no negativity of any kind from anybody.
10:01It was really, really terrific.
10:05And that makes all the difference, you know,
10:08apart from the fact that you, you know,
10:10have to give time and space for everybody to get it right,
10:13not least the actors, you know.
10:16We have a couple of questions.
10:18There's one question I'm going to ask everyone who comes through.
10:20But first, a little BTS.
10:22What was actually in the wine and or champagne classes
10:27you were drinking on set?
10:28That was a lot of grape juice.
10:30And I think, did we get to a point
10:31where we just couldn't drink any more?
10:34Well, we both, I think, each of us at one point in,
10:37I don't think they're the same scenes,
10:38but our characters decided to down whatever they were drinking.
10:41Which, looking back, maybe, I think I had to do the grape juice.
10:47You had to do the fizzy one, which is even worse.
10:49Yeah, I've erased it.
10:51But for the questioner, the actual answer is not real alcohol.
10:56Yes, yes.
10:57Very important, very important.
10:59Somebody asked me the other day in an interview,
11:02they said, because they were talking about,
11:04they'd read that I was inspired or influenced by Ozu's film,
11:09the Japanese filmmaker.
11:11And they said, well, obviously, you know,
11:13he makes films, in his films, people are in small rooms.
11:17So that inspired you.
11:18And I had to say, well, yes,
11:19but it's not that I looked at Ozu's films and thought,
11:22oh, I want to make films in small rooms.
11:24It's that the experience of families in Ozu's films
11:28related to my own experience of families
11:31and the kind of world and physical world
11:34and the homes and things I grew up in.
11:36And that, of course, is what my films are about, really.
11:42You
Comments