Case Study: Leslee Udwin

Producer Leslee Udwin struck gold in 1999 with her first feature film, the crossover Brit-com East Is East. Yet her entry into the world of film production was quite unusual. Leslee began her career as an actress, appearing in TV shows such as the infamous BBC soap Eldorado. However, a lengthy court battle with an unscrupulous landlord led to her collaborating on a docu-drama about her experiences (1989's Sitting Targets).

After seeing the realities of producing firsthand, Leslee was inspired to become a full-time film producer. As well as East Is East, she has produced the TV drama Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990), rom-com The One And Only (2002) and Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution (2007), starring Catherine Tate as a woman who travels from West Yorkshire to East Germany during the Cold War...

First interest in producing...

"In 1985 the building I lived in was bought by a very notorious landlord. He proceeded to cut off our services and threaten our lives. One night at 2am he threw the furniture of one of the flats down the stairs. He literally threatened to kill us because he wanted us out of the building so he could have vacant possession and make millions in profit. I fought a crusade against him for about two and a half years. It had a very optimistic and successful outcome and it set a precedent in the High Court. At that point I was an actress and I had no thought of doing anything else in my life. But that experience made me impassioned. I wanted people to hear the story so that it would inspire them to stand up for themselves in the face of incredible odds.

"It was the sense of wanting to communicate that story to a lot of people that got me interested in producing. I wrote a treatment of the story, sent it to a producer who I admired very much, and we made it as a Screen Two film. It was a drama documentary called Sitting Targets and I played myself in it. I still had one foot very firmly in the acting camp because at that point I was an actor, not a producer. But I worked on the script with the writer and worked with the producer in a consultancy capacity because, of course, I had lived the real life story.

"I worked alongside producer Mark Shivas as he put the project together. It was wonderful, because as an actor you're very powerless in terms of having input into the material that you perform. You're merely an interpretative artist. I loved the thought of choosing stories to tell and being able to create them and nurture them. It also seemed to me, since Mark was a very consummate producer, that it was a very easy thing to produce a film! So that made me interested in producing.

"The next thing that happened was that I was approached at a party by a campaigner for The Birmingham Six. They had heard about my landlord film and asked me if I would set up a film about them. That was my first job as an actual producer. I enquired into the story of The Birmingham Six and did six months' research. It made me convinced that there had been a miscarriage of justice. So I set up that film with Granada's World In Action team and we made a drama-documentary that I produced starring John Hurt and Martin Shaw called Who Bombed Birmingham?. After that I produced my first feature film, East Is East."

Transition into features...

"It surprised me how good I was at the business and the legal side of producing. That isn't something that actors are usually confronted with. I suppose I had always had something of a sense of frustration as an actress. I had a very good acting career: I played Lady Macbeth and worked at the National Theatre and the Royal Court and the RSC. But I always had a sense of frustration because I had more energy than the level of work I needed to do. If I was rehearsing during the day I was bored at night. If I was performing during the evenings, I was bored in the day.

"So I suppose I've always found producing - which is a 20 out of 24-hour day job - more gratifying. I was lucky enough to have a huge success with my first feature film [East Is East], which obviously motivated me to continue. I have to say, though, that I'm no longer motivated to continue. I'm actually planning on retiring. That's really all to do with the state of the British film industry, which I believe to be absolutely dead as a result of short-sightness on the part of the Government, the Treasury and the UK Film Council. In the meantime I'm moving to Denmark where film and culture identity is valued. But I don't think I'll continue producing there.

"I've made three films now as a sole producer and I'm exhausted. I have two young children who I've basically ignored since the day they were born because I was working so hard and I really want to take a break - although I am planning one more film, the sequel to East Is East! It's in development at the moment, so I'll do that and then stop."

Your biggest setback...

"It's definitely the change in the tax laws. I was at a point where I had a team of people reliant on me to get this film [Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution] made. They had committed to it and turned down other jobs for it. The pressure I felt as the leader of this team to not let other people down meant that I made the ultimate mistake. Producers are always told: never use your own money. But the kind of pressure brought to bear on us means we don't always look at things logically. So when the Treasury wiped out the tax funding in this country, 37% of my budget was reduced overnight to 8%. The missing 19% of the £3.5 million budget had to come from me or the film would have collapsed.

"I borrowed money and remortgaged my home and did all the things one shouldn't do. And that's the greatest lesson for any young producer - just stick to the rule: don't ever, ever defer your fees or use your own money. If you're forced to, you're either producing in the wrong country or the film just shouldn't be made. I'm very proud of Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution and have huge expectations for it, but nonetheless the eight months I've spent not sleeping as a result of what I was forced to do... nothing in the world is worth that.

"Of all the films that are made, only 1% prove to be a good business decision from the point of view of the kind of risk I've taken. It's too risky a business and in the meantime there are kids to school and feed. Whatever happens, it was a bad decision."

Relationship with directors...

"In two out of three cases it's been very amicable and amenable. In the case of one director, I had a very hard time. I think that the pitfall or trap that directors sometimes fall into is partly engendered by the view the industry has of directors and producers. The industry basically doesn't value producers as much as directors. In certain countries, this is more true than in others. In France, the director is the auteur, the be-all and end-all. But that does permeate through all industries in all countries to some degree. The director is given a sense of importance that encourages them - not always, but often - to be autocratic and to make decisions without proper reference to their team.

"Even though, on paper, the producer can sack a director who is not collaborating or is misbehaving, the reality is that sacking a director is the very, very last resort. If you sack a director everything comes to a halt while you find a replacement and reassemble the team. That means a loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds and it's the last thing you do. So in a way they've got all the cards stacked in front of them. And I think a lot of directors do misbehave.

"If you look the logistics of who basically manages the vision of a project, it's the producer. The producer is there for the duration, from day one. I think that the industry doesn't appreciate this enough and most producers' experiences with directors are unhappy as a result. But, I've been lucky enough to have really good relationships with two of the directors I've worked with. The most recent one, with Billie Eltringham [director of Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution], is the best experience to date. She's a hugely collaborative and open director. There was no conflict whatsoever with her."

Describe your producing style...

"A lot of producers are more interested in output than specifics. They're concerned to build businesses and have a number of projects and to ensure that at least one of them will go in any given year. I don't work that way. My style is, I suppose, purely engined by and a slave to passion. I can't make a film that I don't feel entirely passionate about. I only make one film at a time, which is a very bad business model because all my eggs are in this one basket. But on the other hand the advantage of that style is that because I'm going hell-for-leather on this one project, I put every ounce of energy into it. So it stands more of a chance getting made, getting funded or getting the right actors and team because it's being fuelled by such passion and conviction.

"It does, however, mean that I could be spending years on a project that never gets made and have nothing to show for it. But I suppose that this sense of passion and commitment is probably the stamp of my style and it's probably why I manage to get actors who would usually command a much higher fee than the budget allows to do it for less, because I've managed to communicate to them how valuable I think this piece of work is. Ultimately passion and faith move mountains, and in this industry you sometimes need to move mountains."

Tips for producers...

"Passion is the most important thing. Never waste your time on a story that you're not burning to have told. Because it's only if you have 100% faith in and passion for the telling of a story that you should spend five years of your life pursuing the making of it. I guess that's the bottom line.

"There are so many points in the process when you hit a brick wall or you're disappointed or you don't get everything you need. There are so many points at which you think: This isn't working, I'm going to give up this particular project. Unless you have that absolute cast iron faith, you will walk away from it and you'll have wasted your time. So don't start on a story that you don't completely and utterly believe in."

The UK film industry. Discuss...

"The tragedy of the times we're living in is that we as a film industry are entirely perceived as a satellite of America. There will only ever be a UK film industry if and when this government sees some relationship between our cultural identity and film. And sadly, they don't.

"At the moment, the UK Film Council - which should be a nurturing body sustaining the base of production in this country - is acting more like a trade commission to encourage the Americans to film here and to bring revenue into the UK economy. They're no longer coming in the way that they once did because there's no longer the tax funding available. They used to be able to benefit financially from coming here, but with the incredibly weak dollar and the fact that there's very little funding available now through tax incentives, I think they'll come le and less.

"Everyone in this country thinks a British film is something to be ashamed of. British films are seen as very small projects that will not perform at the box office unless by a complete fluke. People look at films like East Is East, Bend It Like Beckham and The Full Monty as one-off, freak events. I look at those films as the best examples of what a really, truly British film is. In all those cases, all those films were almost impossible to fund.

"East Is East had a terrible battle to find its funding. Nobody believed in that film. Not even FilmFour, who finally decided to make it. They made it because they had a brief at that time to invest in multiculturally significant films. Cultural diversity was the buzz at the time. Had it not been for that, they would not have invested in it. And when they did invest in it, they actually thought it would lose them money. I knew this film would be a mega-hit and why shouldn't it? If I was looking for the funding again now from FilmFour or the Film Council, I would be told that that film would not succeed because it doesn't have any American stars in it!

"This government needs to realise that culture and film are one and the same thing. It's not about commerce and getting the Americans to spend their dollars here, it's about our cultural identity. It's as important as that. Until there are protective measures put in place, there will be no British film industry. We need to do what is being done in France, where there are laws to ensure that cinemas don't just pump out American product. In the meantime, the odd successful British film will creep in here and there and it will be a big hit and they will claim the credit for it. But that will be a film that they didn't want upfront. So we're in a parlous state.

"We Brits are the only producers in Europe who cannot apply to Eurimages [a European cinema fund] for production funding. That's £500,000 that we would have got from Europe. That £500,000 would have prevented me from having to fold all of my fees and more into the funding of my new film. It's appalling! They don't deserve a film industry. Hopefully they'll wake up one day and realise all the mistakes they've made and put it right. That's the only hope - that it'll get so bad that they realise it. Now you see why I'm so disillusioned and angry."

Jamie Russell | Published 27 September 07