Mike Leigh OBE FRSL is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter, and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design, and the London School of Film Technique.
What is Mike Leigh best known for?
Leigh’s most notable works include the black comedy-drama Naked (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA- and Palme d’Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies (1996), the Golden Lion-winning working-class drama Vera Drake (2004), and the Palme d’Or-nominated biopic Mr.
Leigh studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in the early 1960s, but his interest in writing and directing led him to switch schools several times, and he ultimately graduated from the London School of Film Technique (now London Film School) in 1965.
At about that time he began developing a method for creating narratives that relied on actors’ improvisations to manufacture characters and conflict in an organic manner.