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Mike Leigh films 'S are known for their formidable female characters. We get some of his favorite actresses, from veterans Alison Steadman and Brenda Blethyn to star a year to discuss the special magic of creating a character with Lee - and talk to the man himself

When Mike Leigh has anything to do with a party, it tends to be dangerous: everything, in his films, starts to unravel. But at this get-together of women who regularly act in them, all is well. They are opening the champagne, getting ready to smile for the camera, and someone â€" I think it is Alison Steadman â€" shouts: "To Mike!". Everyone â€" Imelda Staunton, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville, Marion Bailey, Karina Fernandez â€" lifts their glasses. There is much laughter and noisy conversation. I know how many of his regulars regret not being here because I have been talking to some of them â€" Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Sally Hawkins â€" in Northampton, Los Angeles and New York. I know, too â€" because she is remembered so often â€" how everyone wishes Katrin Cartlidge, who died eight years ago at 41, were alive and able to join in.

Another Year

Living the role

Leigh is said to keep mum about his working methods. But the actors are more forthcoming: improvisations, they explain, take months. Each character's history begins in one-to-one discussions (like therapy) with the director. There is, according to Manville, a "huge amount of interrogation". The words "epic" and "organic" keep coming up â€" and several of the women describe the process as like creating a novel. Each actor initially knows nothing about what other characters are up to, or rather, as Blethyn explains: "Everything is on a need-to-know basis … Leigh says he has nothing at the back of his head but may be conducting an experiment … putting two chemicals together." Improvisations might involve hours doing nothing more than watching the box â€" or, sometimes, study: Jean-Baptiste researched optometry, Fernandez did occupational therapy and flamenco. "Working with Leigh is an act of faith," Jean-Baptiste says, "I have never worked on anything since with such depth."

Improvisation is a way of living the role â€" hours of experience that may never make it into the film. And all the actors express a special sense of "ownership" about their Mike Leigh characters. "The possession is total," Staunton says; Sheen: "You go into such depth. You create them. They are yours." Blethyn imagines her character from Secrets and Lies must still be out there somewhere: "You want to ring her and say: 'Hello, Cynthia, how you doing?'" Hawkins sums it up: "You invest a lot emotionally. It is very demanding. It takes over your life. You know your character so well â€" what her dreams were, what she got for Christmas in 1987, every stage of her life. She becomes like part of you from a former life." Steadman describes Leigh as "the third eye, the monitor, setting the character up". Bailey used to refer jokingly to his interventions as "acts of God".

I decide God will need to be put on the spot â€" but later. The women must have their say first. For convenience, Leigh's women can be divided into two groups: happy and unhappy. His films, especially the latest, raise questions about what makes women happy.

Ruth Sheen

Ruth Sheen is the happiness supremo. As Gerri, she is serene, almost queenly. She was wonderful, too, in High Hopes Another year ," says Sheen, "is a family that is the heart. Around them are the lonely and the sad and those detached from their emotions â€" where alcohol is in place of relationships." To develop Gerri "took months and months". Sheen can supply all the details of her early life â€" hopeful child, positive young woman, first in her family to get to university (Manchester). She is "a thinker, a listener".

Lesley Manville

Lesley Manville has played in seven Leigh films. "Until I met Mike in my 20s, I played myself all the time. Now, thanks to him, I never get typecast. No one says: 'Lesley only does depressed … or working-class … or posh.'" As her roles show, Leigh is interested not so much in showing Everywoman as any woman â€" no one too humble. And, it is true, Manville can do anything â€" but she excels at unhappiness.

She starred in All or nothing (2002) as the distraught, anaemic-looking mother of a fat son with heart failure. She and Leigh see that film as "the one that got away". Her performance as Penny was superb but it cannot trump her Mary in Another Year. Mary is in the autumn of her life. She sees in Gerri a contentment she wishes she had. Manville â€" a single parent herself â€" knows "a lot of women who are single and childless by choice". Mary is not one of them: "She wants love and care and attention. Her friend is the bottle, unfortunately." Manville volunteers: "I've witnessed women in their 50s in a manic state of pain and loneliness." She felt Sheen's character could have been more tolerant: "I used to go to Mike and say: 'Mary feels Gerri should be a bit kinder.' He wouldn't comment."

Sally Hawkins

In Careless (2008), Sally Hawkins plays Poppy (self-evidently in the happy camp), a primary school teacher who was born cheerful.Whatever happens (deranged driving instructors included) she bounces back. "She has a talent for happiness," says Hawkins, "she doesn't take things personally. She is not on the defensive. She doesn't judge." And here is the key to Leigh: everything is character driven â€" and he doesn't judge. Women are happy because of who they are more than because of what happens to them.

Imelda Staunton

The one exception to this is Imelda Staunton's Vera Drake, a tender-hearted abortionist with a happy family life. When her circumstances change and the cops arrest her, the change in her seems absolute, her face a picture of despair. Staunton describes working on the role as "exhilarating". It was only later that "the fall-out happened. Vera Drake made a dent in my head that, at the time, I was not aware of at all. Three or four years later, I was thinking about it all the time. I'd lost that family, lost that woman. Vera made a huge impact on me."

Staunton has a cameo role in Another Year. And the extraordinary thing is that as middle-class, unhappily married Janet, she seems more of a casualty even than Vera Drake. Leigh is known for his films about working-class life but does not make the case for happiness having much to do with money. Staunton's performance is amazing: her misery, as Janet, formidable. She excites tremendous, never-to-be-satisfied, curiosity in the audience.

We agree that Leigh has no agenda. Staunton says: "He has no axe to grind about women … but they have as strong a role to play as men." If there is a generalisation, it is that maternity is the great event â€" disaster, disrupter or blessing â€" in a woman's life. It is not a subject he ever neglects. There is a painful divide â€" as sometimes in life â€" between the haves and the have-nots. There are women who cannot conceive (like Monica in Secrets and Lies or Barbara in Meantime). There are unplanned pregnancies (in Vera Drake ; Secrets & Lies ; All or nothing ). And there is never finding the right man or leaving it too late (Mary in Another Year). In High Hopes, it is Shirley's precarious achievement patiently to persuade her partner they should try for a baby. But there is no point to prove. This is film mirroring life.

Alison Steadman

Beverly, in Abigail's Party

Steadman mildly replies that such extremes exist in real life: "Sitting on the bus, you'll see Mike Leigh characters getting on left, right and centre. There are extremes â€" people go from normal to completely over the top." She adds: "Most comedy is like a magnifying glass. You enlarge reality slightly."

Steadman was married to Leigh when she made Abigail's Party (she also played gorgeously gormless Candice Marie, complete with prim speech impediment and bobble hat, in 1976's Nuts in May'). Was the work/home balance ever tricky? "No, it wasn't peculiar or difficult. Mike has a rule never to discuss work. You put your frock away in the rehearsal room, come home and have a normal life."

The director's take

When I ring Mike Leigh he wants, most of all, to celebrate Katrin Cartlidge (Career Girlsand Naked). Naked was a one-off â€" the darkest, sexiest, most disturbing of Leigh's films. Cartlidge gave a sense in this â€" and Career Girls â€" of being a woman who wished she could live as a free spirit (not easy in practice). She was a brilliant mixture of independence, eccentricity and vulnerability. And she had such an odd beauty â€" like a clever emu. "It is terribly sad you can't talk to her. If she'd lived, there is no question I would have done more with her," Leigh says. "She was very special. What one remembers is the compassionate emotional depth, wit and perception. She never said a bad word about anything. As an actor she was courageous â€" and gorgeous."

He chuckles at the idea of a piece about his women: "I'm someone who has deservedly been a signal failure at relationships … but I do have a good working relationship with actresses." Aside from talent, what qualities do they need? "Patience. A sense of humour. They have to be intelligent character actors, turned on by playing people in the street. Not prima donnas. There is a great deal of hanging around while other people get it together. But the work is harmonious â€" a loving thing. It is also a laugh."

Much has been made of Leigh's tendency to use his "old-timers" again and again. But he wants to set the record straight: "I'm always up for working with new people, like the excellent Karina Fernandez." His promise to returning actors is: "We won't go to the same place." He sees Another Year as a "personal, reflective film â€" I am 67 but can see emotional connections with my first film Cold Moments (1971)."

It is true â€" both films describe loneliness. And what would he say of himself? Is he happier now than when he made Cold Moments nearly 40 years ago?

"Yes and no."

Manville is more upfront. "In the latter part of his career, he's made films about reality, his earlier films involved more satire. He is happier where he is now. He is at the peak of his profession as a film-maker."