Sally Hawkins Golightly

Happy-Go-Lucky’s Holly Golightly, Sally Hawkins gets a glowing profile in W this month:

As Poppy, an irrepressibly bubbly and optimistic London schoolteacher, Hawkins turns what could have been the most annoying character in the history of cinema into a highly nuanced, and unexpectedly endearing, psychological study.

And about director Mike Leigh’s unique method of catching lightening in a bottle:

Hawkins remains partial to Leigh’s particular way of working, a process she finds both terrifying and addictive. Instead of giving his actors a script, Leigh puts them through weeks of improvised conversations and exercises, during which they’re “sort of free-falling in the dark,” Hawkins says. In this case he had Hawkins construct Poppy from birth, getting the actress into character as a baby and later introducing Poppy to her younger sisters as they, in turn, joined the family as newborns. (In the film they appear only as adults.) “It creates this incredible chemistry instantly,” Hawkins says. “The relationship is formed in full. It’s like magic.”

We featured the trailer 2 months ago here, but for those who missed it — or those who want to see the new improved embed — we’ll run it again, after the cut.