Baptiste’s performance as Pansy Deacon in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, and it’s easy to see why. From the opening scene, her performance carries an undeniable weight. Pansy is sharp-tongued, restless, and constantly on edge.

‘We’re not used to seeing – especially in the UK – a middle-aged Black woman in pain on screen in this way. I think there’s something really powerful about that,’ Michele tells Metro about the multi-Bafta-nominated feature already making waves for Black British representation in the film industry.

A colleague once told me that I shouldn’t take Mike Leigh’s films with contemporary settings as slices of everyday life. He was right: they’re hyperreal. Especially Hard Truths, in which his take on a woman both depressed and angry – it’s possible to be both more or less simultaneously – packs years of grievances and unacceptable verbal abuse into a very short period of time.

Three decades after Secrets & Lies made her a star, the British actress has reunited with Mike Leigh – to give the performance of a lifetime

Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives the performance of the year as an explosive volcano of a woman in “Hard Truths.” She tells us what it was like to be so unhinged—and win awards for it.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is ferocious and funny in this fearless drama - 4/5 Mike Leigh’s uncompromising latest film is harrowing and hilarious, centred around a fearless lead performance by Marianne Je

Marianne Jean-Baptiste deserved to be nominated for her leading role as the prickly, difficult Pansy in Mike Leigh's towering study of everyday misery

Jean-Baptiste is no stranger to working with Leigh, as she received her breakout role (and first Oscar nomination) for his brilliant drama Secrets & Lies. Although that film required her to play a warm,

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, 57, was born in south London and trained at Rada. Her breakthrough role was in Mike Leigh’s 1995 film Secrets & Lies, which led to Oscar and BAFTA nominations.

The British director’s new film features a titanic performance from Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who reunites with him nearly three decades after his Oscar-nominated ‘Secrets & Lies’

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Taking our top spot this week however is Mike Leigh’s new comedy-drama, Hard Truths. Starring the ever-incredible Marianne Jean-Baptiste alongside Michele Austin, this one is showcasing the best of British talent in a story of familial strife.