Mike Leigh has been making films in London since the early 1970s, so it figures he’s a guy who knows his way around town. In anticipation of the April 18th release of his latest, Happy-Go-Lucky, Time Out London asked the man himself for a guided tour of locations from his 18 feature films. They only wanted a few hours, but Leigh was so into the idea, it stretched into two days. The director “barely ever shoots in a studio and the usual drill is that he, his cast and crew will take over a location and inhabit it fully, whether it’s a gothic-looking corner house in Dalston for Naked in 1993 or a derelict council estate in Greenwich for All or Nothing in 2002. It became obvious, too, as Leigh leapt in and out of the car, squeezed through canalside railings in Haggerston, or gamely stood beside the traffic at the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel, that he lives and breathes this city. There’s no need to ask him where he gets his inspiration from: you’ve only got to watch him in action to see that real people and places mean everything to him.”
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