When Lesley Manville was 23, she met Mike Leigh – and her future immediately came into focus. Just three years before, she’d been a soap star, appearing on Emmerdale as teenager Rosemary Kendall, but she decided to branch out to see what other roles she could find. “I wanted to be a character actor,” Manville tells me, ensconced in a cosy screening room at Chiswick Cinema. Well, mission very much accomplished. Through Leigh – a defining British filmmaker known for his realistic portrayals of working-class life – she was granted the chance to play roles she never dreamed possible. “Age 16 to 23 was fine, but it didn’t enter my head to play characters; I just played me and I was doing alright. But once I met Mike and we started working together, I loved it.”
Manville has worked with Leigh on eight films in total – more than any other actor – but this just scrapes the surface of a vibrant career that’s traversed stage and screen, big and small, with the actor always bringing a commanding, lived-in aura to her roles, be they icy, fragile, menacing or warm-hearted.
