Q&A with Mike Leigh

This is a rough transcript of a Q&A with writer-director Mike Leigh that took place January 22, 2010 at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds after the screening of Topsy-Turvy (1999; written and directed by Mike Leigh).

Mike Leigh in Edinburgh 21.08.2007

SWF2009 Part 3: Iannucci and Loader

This is part 3 of the Cheltenham Screenwriters’ Festival series.

Writer-director Armando Iannucci and producer/Festival Chairman Kevin Loader talk about the script development and filming process of In the Loop.

In the Loop is written by:
Armando Iannucci
Jesse Armstrong
Simon Blackwell
Tony Roche
Ian Martin (the swearing consultant)

“Well, his briefing notes were written in alphabetti spaghetti. When I left, I nearly tripped up over his fucking umbilical cord.”  (Malcolm Tucker)

The story was born out of the real-life dysfunction that haunts politicians and government offices on both sides of the pond. The middle-management type of life behind the scenes where everything is done in silence and without questions, the serious flaws in internal communication, or the incident with Jack Straw who said in an interview that the invasion of Iran is “inconceivable”, or how politicians return from a big international meeting to deal with something trivial (like a wall). Iannucci spent time in Washington and in the White House, where he sneaked in with a random ID card pretending to attend a meeting. He met politicians and journalists, asking “boring” questions like what

Currently reading

Gerda Kordemet’s project on Jüri Vilms. Vilms was a member of the committee that issued Estonian Declaration of Independence on February24th, 1918 while the Russian army was retreating and the German troops advancing. Vilms wanted to travel west to bring aid to save the young Republic but on his way to Helsinki he vanished. No one knew whether it was the Reds, the Whites, the Finns, or the Germans who killed him, or whether he made it to Finland in the first place. At the same time, the German occupiers refused to recognise Estonia’s independence which was finally achieved two years later after the War of Independence. There was an investigation into the disappearance of Vilms, and according to the official version, he was captured and executed in Helsinki by the Germans troops but no one really knows for sure whether the remains in his grave belong to him or not.