“Rub it in, why don’t you!”

Oops! Forgetting that Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí pipped her last month to multiple British Independent Film Awards, I’ve turned up to my interview with the Hard Truths star Michele Austin in a Kneecap t-shirt. Thankfully, the actor’s nose is only very slightly out of joint.

“It was as good a night as it could’ve been when you’re wearing stilettos – those things hurt!” the 44-year-old laughs. “I’ve been round the block quite a bit, so the nomination was definitely a ‘pat yourself on the back’ moment. I’m really proud of this film, which is so small compared to lots of the other stuff that’s out there. While not winning was a bit of a disappointment, I was delighted for a mate of mine, Adam Best, who plays one of the paramilitaries in the Kneecap film, Doyle. I was really hoping he might be there but he wasn’t.

“It’s incredible that none of them had ever acted before. I had a laugh with the guy in the balaclava who had a nice glass of red wine with him.”

Yes, Próvaí has been known to have the odd tincture for medicinal reasons. While the Kneecap biopic is a 100mph joyride through Belfast, Hard Truths is an altogether slower – though no less captivating - navigation of London suburbia and the lives of a Black British family with severe communication issues.

It’s a first cinematic run out in six years for legendary English writer and director Mike Leigh. Having previously appeared in his acclaimed 1996 and 2010 films, Secrets & Lies and Another Lie, Austin knew to expect the unexpected from the 81-year-old who clearly loves working with her.

Mike Leigh

Asked how she first came into his orbit, Michele says: “I’d recently left drama school and went for the Secrets & Lies audition thankfully not knowing what a big deal he was because otherwise I might have messed it up. A lot of people meet Mike with preconceptions about what he wants from them, which he doesn’t like. Because I was new to all of it, I didn’t question what he was asking me to do – which was just ‘be’.

“When you start a job with him there’s no script or even knowing what your part is. You just get a call saying, ‘Would you like to work on a film with Mike Leigh?’ You go, ‘Yes, please!’ and start off on your own building a character with him. Sometimes it’s based on people you know or have met, other times not. Slowly through researching their job and where they live, a life story emerges and you get to collaborate with make-up and costume and set design as well.

“When all the characters are fully formed and you start shooting, Mike still insists on everything being improvised. Through these improvisations – and him adding and subtracting things – you eventually end up with what’s in the film.”

It sounds like Leigh’s cast and crew earn every penny of their pay cheques.

“There’s no coasting,” she nods. “You have to be switched on all the time and by the end of the day are exhausted – in a good way!”

In Hard Truths, Michele plays free spirited hairdresser Chantelle whose joi de vivre is in stark contrast to her perma-scowling sister Pansy whose relationships with her husband Curtley and son Moses are in terminal decline.

Michele describes Pansy as “fearful and angry. She’s railing against the world and drowning. At one point she describes herself as feeling ‘haunted’, which is definitely part of what’s going on but there’s more to it than that.”

Austin’s screen sister is played with supreme nuance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, a fellow Londoner, best-known for her role as Vivian Johnson in 159 episodes of Without A Trace – her New York accent was impeccable – which is one short of Michele’s 160 appearances as PC Yvonne Hemmingway in The Bill.

“That’s so funny!” Austin smiles. “I didn’t realise there was a way of getting those numbers. People can be snooty about it but pretending to be a policewoman taught me so much about being on screen, how a set works and what you can do with very little. It’s a real shame that shows like that don’t exist anymore because it’s a great education and for a lot of actors their first job.

“As for Marianne, whose performance in Hard Truths is extraordinary, one of the great joys of my life has been not only working with her but also getting to hang out as friends. It’s a very lovey thing to say but there are certain people you connect with and who get the best out of you and Marianne and Mike are two of them.”

Despite the inherent Englishness of much of Mike Leigh’s work, Hard Truths has overseas critics drooling with delight.

“The international premiere was at the Toronto Film Festival and the response overwhelming,” Michele recalls. “There was this woosh at the end when everybody stood up and started clapping – and kept clapping. I’m a real cry-baby, so when we got up on stage Marianne said to me, ‘Don’t cry or you’ll set me off!’ It’s a cliché but it really did take our breath away.

“What was lovely was audience members in Canada saying, ‘Yep, this is my family!’ They recognised their sister or their aunt in it. The same thing happened in New York and San Sebastian, so the appeal seems to be universal.”

What you mightn’t have gleaned from our interview so far is that Hard Truths is also very, very funny. So much so that popcorn erupted from the gentleman in front of me’s mouth during one of Pansy’s rants.

“It was only when I saw the finished film that I realised just how many genuinely funny moments there are in it,” Michele agrees. “The humour’s natural though, never forced.”

Talking last year to Hot Press, respective Mr. Loverman and Supacell stars Ariyon Bakare and Adelayo Adedayo both spoke about the lack of representation in British film and TV when they were kids.

“Growing up I didn’t see many actors who looked like me or talked like me either,” Michele nods. “I’m very proud that, for the first time, you’ve two middle-aged Black women on the poster for a British film. Is it right to celebrate something that should’ve happened before? I don’t know but that’s really powerful.”

Before reuniting with Mike Leigh in Hard Truths, Michele was a serial scene-stealer in Meet The Richardsons – no mean feat in a cast that also included Johnny Vegas, Russell Kane and Rob Beckett – and appeared as midwife Tracy in the TV adaptation of Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt.

“That was brilliant!” she enthuses. “The script is so taught and funny but also heartbreaking. After reading it, I was praying to the gods I don’t believe in hoping I’d get the job.

“Coming towards the end of lockdown, it felt like we were being let out of the traps. Driving through London it was an apocalyptic scene and then you’d arrive at this amazing set which looked exactly like a real hospital.”

Did Michele have to brush up on her gynaecological skills for the part?

“Along with Adam, we had medical advisors there all day, every day making it as real as possible so they guided me. The special effects were insane. There’s one scene towards the end, which is just eye-wateringly gruesome. I had nightmares that day because it was too much like real life.”

As much as she loves the industry she’s been part of for thirty-plus years, Michele wishes it would be more adventurous.

“People’s tastes are wider than a lot of commissioning editors and people with film money appreciate,” she ventures. “The stuff I’m watching, and which is doing really well on Netflix or Disney or Apple or whatever, is really diverse. Shows like The Bear and Slow Horses aren’t super-sexy but we love them because of the character actors they have in them.”

Besides her bravura performance in Hard Truths, another reason for Michele making the Hot For 2025 cut is her upcoming – and seriously hush hush – appearance in a certain dystopian British anthology series.

“I’m in a Black Mirror episode that’s coming up but can’t tell you anything else!”