Blessed Brenda

A Northern (English, that is) heart-warmer that has all the humour, harshness and humanity of The Full Monty but ruthlessly snuffs out any hint of easy-option feelgood comfiness, Little Voice already holds early pole position in the Hot Press Film of the Year stakes.

The film owes most of its perversely painful low-rent glory to a magnificent central performance from Brenda Blethyn—she of Secrets & Lies fame—which has earned the actress her second Oscar nomination in three years.

Most viewers will instantly appreciate her performance for the hilarious tour de force of human frailty it is, but the self-effacing Blethyn claims to be taken aback by the acclaim:

"Yeah, I can't believe it, I really can't. Especially cos I was so convinced that Jane and Michael would be nominated. Obviously, as soon as I read it I knew it was a wonderful script, and it'd be an even better film with Mark (Herman) directing—he'd done Brassed Off, which I loved. That film had so much grittiness and it was still really funny. Cos it was very much about real people, and how desperate some of them were and the struggles they always have, but there was no sense of doom and gloom about it at all."

In person, the gracious and quietly-spoken Blethyn is a million miles away from the motormouthed characters she has essayed so convincingly in her movies. Does she ever find, in the course of everyday life, that people expect her to conform to her on-screen persona?

"Oh yes, people in the street sort of stop me—it's a bit unnerving, actually. When we were making the film (Little Voice), I'd go from my trailer and the make-up room to the set, a car would take me, and I'm dressed in this really low-cut thing, and the driver would start telling me really bawdy, horrible stories about his exploits the night before, and I'm there trying to study my script, thinking 'he wouldn't dare do this if I was dressed normally'. And he's using terrible language, effing and blinding, he's obviously watched Mari in a scene from the film and he thinks 'ahh, that's her'. I became terribly prim (adopts snotty Royal Family accent): 'Would you mind telling that driver to moderate his language in the car?'

"Fortunately, now, there are some people I meet who've seen Little Voice and they don't recognise me at all. Then when I'm introduced to them they can hardly believe I was Mari, which is quite flattering I suppose (laughs)."

Did you like her?

"(Hesitant pause) I don't approve of the way she behaves, but I understand why she behaves the way she does—I kinda like her, yeah. I envy her optimism and her joie-de-vivre—I'm much too reserved, I wish I'd a little bit of what she's got. You know, here I am thinking 'what's the right thing to say to him here?'—just say it, you know?".

Was the film as much fun to make as it seemed?

"It was, yeah (giggling). It was a real treat to work with Michael Caine, I'd never met him before. I was surprised at how friendly and un-cocky he was. I thought maybe he might have been a little bit reserved, but he wasn't. Apart from being friendly, he's a tasteful man, and has manners, he's everything that Ray wasn't.

"There was a man who would sing down at the seafront in Scarborough who was an Elvis impersonator, and we wanted him to come to one of the cast and crew parties when we finished filming, and he said (in broad oop-north accent) 'if Michael Caine wants t' see me, 'e can come 'ere'—and he actually did.

"We were down this pub, The Nelson's Arms, and it was completely packed, and in comes Michael Caine in his anorak. No grandeur, he just turned up and he was bopping away with the rest of us. The guy was so humbled, he made a really nice, generous announcement over the mike."

The film's characters are such a sorry bunch, you've got to love them.

"Everyone in the film is just so pathetic," she concurs. "And there are people like that, these people who go from club to club doing their act and earning their wages, and make a living out of it. It's a serious business to them, it's every day of their lives.

"I mean, there's Mari and LV—they're used to each other, they've lived like this together for 15 years since Dad's gone, with her rabbiting on, and if Mari shut up for any length of time LV'd probably call the doctor. They're used to it, it's normal."

Like everyone who's seen the film, Blethyn is full of admiration for Ewan McGregor's low-key, untypically nerdy performance as a tongue-tied, pigeon-fancying romantic.

"I think Ewan was lovely in it—I think it's great, here he is, an international heart-throb and he does something like this. I can see him becoming an impresario or something, investing in film and theatre, besides being an actor—he already has the clout. He's good news, absolutely totally down-to-earth.

"In fact, I heard that when the show transferred to the West End, of course they were offering him mega-amounts of money, and much less for the supporting cast, but he insisted that he got less and they got paid a lot more off his surplus. He didn't have to do it, and he did. Didn't talk about it, didn't boast about it, certainly didn't tell a newspaper—he did it cause it was the right thing.

"It was funny, there were hordes of women lining the street for him and Michael, which was great," she laughs. "There'd be older women checking Ewan out and younger women checking Michael out, quite a good mix. There weren't many men checking me and Sadie out, though."

A theatre connoisseur, Blethyn envisages her future spread between film, theatre and TV work, and sees no significant distinction between the three.

"It's all a stage, isn't it? But I hope to do some more theatre, I'm addicted to it. I'll probably do films as well, and I've just been offered a job for something on television. But I love the stage, I'm getting withdrawal symptoms. I haven't actually seen too many movies the last few years—I live kind of out of London, it's a bit of a trek to go to the cinema and it's just a nark getting meself into town, so I don't go as often as I'd like.

"What's good about being a member of the Academy is you get sent the tapes of all the films that are being considered. But the irony is, I get the tapes and I somehow feel it's not fair to watch them on tape. I'll have to go and see them on the big screen. It's the only way to see a film."

Little Voice is out now on general release.