Still, 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.” Later Leigh encouraged Hawkins and her screen siblings to drive around the London suburbs to find the house in which they might have grown up.
After getting used to such intense creative collaboration, Hawkins finds that it’s now a bit of a letdown to just show up on regular film sets and say her lines. “You realize that other people don’t work like Mike does, and it becomes less about the actors and more about the setup or what the light is doing, or whatever,” she says. “It’s frustrating.” But Hawkins, of course, is not much of a complainer, and she’s even less of one since wrapping Happy-Go-Lucky. Sometimes, she admits, when she’s feeling worried or insecure, she’ll find herself thinking, What would Poppy do?
“Poppy has got a definite confidence and knowledge of herself and strength,” Hawkins says. “I did learn a lot from her. I learned to just let go.”
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