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It was only when her manager started crying that Marianne Jean-Baptiste realized what a big deal it was that she’d won the best actress prize from the New York Film Critics Circle last week.
“I was leaving my hotel room to come up here to do these interviews, and my manager told me,” Jean-Baptiste told me, in a conversation recorded not even an hour after her win was announced. “She was crying so much that I was like, ‘Huh? I did what?’”
The star of Hard Truths is no stranger to awards season: She was nominated for best supporting actress in 1996 for Secrets & Lies, her first onscreen collaboration with her Hard Truths director Mike Leigh. But in the years since, the 57-year-old British actress has embraced the life of a journeyman actor, moving to Los Angeles and working on a wide range of TV and film projects, from years spent on CBS’s Without a Trace to a role opposite Mel Gibson’s twisted version of Santa Claus in 2020’s Fatman.
In other words, you get the sense that Jean-Baptiste has seen it all in Hollywood, and that she’s taking the immense acclaim around Hard Truths in stride as only a true veteran can. “I mean, the first time, we had no clue what we were doing,” she tells me, reflecting on the awards push for Secrets & Lies. “We didn’t know anything about an awards campaign, it was so alien. Whereas this time, I’m being made aware of it— ‘Oh, we’re going to do an Academy event, and this and this and that.’ The great thing is, I love the movie, I’m very proud of it. And so I can talk about it for hours.”
Jean-Baptiste will stay busy talking about Hard Truths for a few more months yet; though she wasn’t among today’s Golden Globes nominees, she’s certain to remain a critical favorite this season. And like any Mike Leigh film, Hard Truths requires a bit of explaining. Though Leigh writes the screenplay for all of his films, they’re ultimately devised by Leigh and his entire company of actors, who gather for weeks to build their characters, imagine whole backstories for them, and slowly figure out what the film will be.
Though Leigh promised Jean-Baptiste she wouldn’t have to move from Los Angeles to London for months to only play a tiny role, she didn’t know her character Pansey — a woman so crippled by grief and anger she becomes a terror to everyone she encounters — would become the focus of Hard Truths. Indeed, the film is a showcase for Jean-Baptiste’s remarkable talents, delivering Pansey’s most cutting and hilarious insults — and then slowly unveiling the deep hurt behind it.
On this week’s Prestige Junkie podcast, Jean-Baptiste explains what it took to become Pansey, from “going very lightly into character” on her trips to the grocery store to now, following screenings of the film, talking to people about the difficult Panseys in their own lives. (It’s a lot of mothers-in-law, as you might guess.)
The episode also includes a conversation between me and freelance critic Esther Zuckerman breaking down this year’s Golden Globe nominations. The conversation was originally broadcast live on Substack, and it won’t be the last time we try out those kind of livestreams. So download the app and join us next time!
