Deadline wrapped its first ever International Grand Tour series last week with Bleecker Street’s Hard Truths, where audiences in theatres across London, Paris, Rome and Copenhagen saw an exclusive screening of the Mike Leigh film followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker and stars. 

The screenings were packed with AMPAS and industry voters across all four European destinations. Leigh and stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin kicked off the series in London, with Jean-Baptiste continuing the tour conversations in Paris, Rome and Copenhagen. 

Hard Truths, which is being released nationwide in the U.S. on January 10, sees Leigh return to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son and anyone who looks her way. 

Across the International Grand Tour series, Jean-Baptiste touched upon reuniting with Leigh for the first time since the 1996 title Secrets & Lies, a film that not only won the Cannes Palme d’Or that year, but went on to earn five Oscar-nominations, including one for Jean-Baptiste for Best Supporting Actress.

She admitted that working with Leigh was a “very singular” experience and detailed the preparation that goes into gearing up for a role with the legendary director, which includes thorough character building, workshopping and minimal script. When building her character for Pansy, Jean-Baptiste said an enormous amount of detail is involved in the preparation, including visiting Kensal Rise and Willesden Green – the London areas where she believed her character grew up – in order to fully paint a picture of Pansy. 

Jean-Baptiste described Leigh’s process as “utterly unique” and “entirely trusting, both ways.” When pressed how Leigh’s training from her first collaboration on stage and then her work on Secrets & Lies helped her in subsequent years to draw lines between herself and the roles she plays, Jean-Baptiste admitted she had taken the director’s lessons in making a firm mental separation: Characters are never referred to in the first person and when the camera stops rolling, there’s a clear break from that person. This, she said, gave her a sense of separation from the unrelenting negativity that Patsy generated on screen. 

Jean-Baptiste admitted that she even had to give up running – one of her favorite exercises – in order to fully embody Pansy’s rageful character as the endorphins from running initially made it more challenging to get into character at the beginning of the shoot. Once she stopped running, Jean-Baptiste found that she was able to fully immerse herself in Pansy’s heavy and thorny state of being. 

Leigh has another film in the works and when pressed on whether Jean-Baptiste would work on that project, she quipped: “No, I think he needs a break from me.” 

Hard Truths, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, is Leigh’s highest scoring title to date on Rotten Tomatoes, currently sitting at 96%. The project also marks Jean-Baptiste’s most honored acting performance of the year where she recently picked up the best lead performance at the British Independent Film Awards. While she didn’t earn a nomination at the Golden Globes, Jean-Baptiste did also win the Best Actress award at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and shared the lead performance win at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association with Anora star Mikey Madison. 

The International Grand Tour for Hard Truths kicked off on December 9 in London at the Curzon Bloomsbury before moving to Le Royal Monceau – Raffles in Paris on December 10, the Cinema Quattro Fontaine in Rome on December 11 and the Empire Cinema in Copenhagen on December 13.