Mike Leigh Calls America ‘Trump Land’: ‘It’s Hard Even to Begin to Articulate the Worry’

For filmmakers caught up in the heat of the awards race, one of its benefits and curses is having to spend a huge chunk of time off your home turf. This is a particularly difficult prospect when the place you’re going brings a distinct sense of unease. Such was the case over the last few weeks as British writer/director Mike Leigh took some time across the pond for the U.S. nationwide release of his new feature, “Hard Truths.”

“I’ve been to the States in the last few weeks,” Leigh said during a recent interview on the “WTF with Marc Maron” podast. “And of course, you can’t help thinking, ‘Jesus fuck, I’m going to Trump Land.’ I mean, it’s hard even to begin to articulate the worry.”

Leigh went on to share how he was born in 1943 and grew up in the rubble of post-WWII Great Britain, so his awareness of the shift toward fascism in America is keenly observed. However, Leigh also pointed out that the politics of Great Britain aren’t exactly much better.

“It’s happening in the UK,” he said. “I mean, you have this fascist outfit, Reform. It’s terrifying, it really is.”

In discussing how he tries to combat fascistic thought through his art, Leigh pointed to the fact that his films are less about carrying a message than they are about reaching your soul.

“What I do, which is never in any real sense polemical — I don’t make movies that say, ‘Think this on the whole,’ which other very perfectly legitimate political filmmakers do,” said Leigh. “I don’t, but I like to think — and I think, as far as I can understand, as far as I can read it, it seems to be right — that whatever I do gets to people on some kind of level, be it emotionally or subconsciously.”

He added, on how “Hard Truths” is making an impact, “What’s fascinating, apart from anything else, is the vast number of people that say, ‘I know a Pansy, I am Pansy, that’s my sister, my dad, my uncle, my auntie, and all the rest of it.”

Even though he’s received this reaction personally, Leigh still wonders if his work is actually accomplishing anything on a societal level and if that’s even important to think about when creating.

“You like to think that what you do is having some kind of effect, but when you are confronted by the relentless, crass, unsophisticated nature of fascism,” Leigh told Maron, “then you say, ‘Well, I worry, that yeah, OK, so I’m making films that permeate in one way or the other and affect people in different kinds of ways, but does it actually confront the threat?’ But that’s the conundrum. But there’s nothing you can do about it other than keep on fighting the fight you fight.”

“Hard Truths” is now in theaters from Bleecker Street.