Sally Hawkins has already been nominated for and won awards for her amazing performance in Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh's four-star new film, currently playing in theaters. In the excellent comedy, Hawkins plays Poppy, a woman who is aggressively happy. In the opening scene, her bike is stolen and she's sad not that she has to walk home or now take driving lessons but because she won't be able to say goodbye. When Poppy is told that she can't make everyone happy, she responds by pointing out that she can try. Leigh's subtle film is a beauty and Hawkins is perfect in it, a guaranteed Oscar nominee for Best Actress. In fact, we spoke to her on the morning that she was nominated for the 11th Annual British Independent Film Awards for that category along with two of her co-stars, Lexi Zegerman and Eddie Marsan. Hawkins couldn't be more delightful, charming, or interesting on the phone, as she opened up about Mike Leigh's unusual filmmaking process and how they collaborated to bring Poppy to life.

THE DEADBOLT: Congratulations on today's nomination.

SALLY HAWKINS: Oh, thank you so much. It's very exciting. I'm really please. It's a real huge honor. And I'm really proud. I'm really glad Eddie and Lexi got one too. Thank you very much.

THE DEADBOLT: Do the awards and acclaim make you nervous?

HAWKINS: It's incredibly exciting. I can't begin to explain. It's insane. And lovely. I'm so proud of this film and I'm so proud of everyone in it and my part in it. I mean, you make it as a huge team and a huge family and it feels like accolades for everyone involved, really. That's what's so lovely about it. It's not any one, it's all of us put together who made it happen and created this incredible film. It's phenomenally exciting as an actor. I just wish everyone could get the same accolades. I'm glad that Lexi and Eddie are up for nominations as well.

THE DEADBOLT: That is cool. To be honest, we've kind of gotten to the point already where we kind of expect you to be nominated.

HAWKINS: Really?!? I'll be holding you to that. If I'm not, then I want to know why. I'm not even thinking like that at all. I can't allow myself to. It's just very exciting for my name to be in the same sentence as [these other actors]. It's both ridiculous and magical. It doesn't happen. Lovely. Really lovely.

THE DEADBOLT: Mike's been telling people in interviews that he kind of built this film around finding a character for you. How does that feel and did you know that?

HAWKINS: That's a huge honor. I would be in Mike's films whether he wanted me to be in every scene or in one or just in the background of a tiny scene. I would do anything for Mike because of the way he works and because of who he is. It's always gonna be an experience. That's lovely to know that. It really is. But because of the way he works, you never really know what you're going to do or what you're going to end up doing or the character you're going to play. You just don't know. I was aware from early on that I was being used a lot and I was booked for ALL of the rehearsal process. So, hopefully, I would be used quite a bit, but you never really know, but that's what's both frightening and exhilarating about his process.

THE DEADBOLT: Let's talk about that process. We know about it but our readers might not know how Mike's films are so different. Can you explain his process?

HAWKINS: Day one, you have no script and you have no character. You don't know what you're going to do. He just gets a group of actors together that he wants to work with and he thinks might be quite interesting, dynamically, and interesting chemistry. I'm sure Mike has a general idea of the kind of line that he wants to pursue. He starts every film and he uses improvisation for every single film he creates even if he has more of a plot idea. In the case of Vera Drake, he knew he was interested in exploring a story with a protagonist that's a back-street abortionist and interested in the subject matter of abortion in the 1950s. In the case of this film, however, he had no starting point. No idea, really. It comes from whatever his actors give him and he can then take that and run and you have to come up with the goods and be using your brain in a creative way and be available and be prepared to work very hard. You're creating, with Mike, characters from nothing and you're creating them from birth. And it's trying to find the essence of this character and who she is and what they're about and what kind of qualities they have. Then you go right back to birth with them once you know who they are.

THE DEADBOLT: There's all that back story developed?

HAWKINS: Yes. ALL that back story. You're plotting in right back to birth - memories, relatives, holidays, knowing where they grew up. If you have an on-screen family, you explore memories with them. In the case of Poppy, I went with Poppy's sisters and we found their childhood house and we imagined dad's car in the drive, Christmas together, disaster Christmases, birthdays, presents, memories, big things that happened in the family, deaths, funerals, wedding, and anything. You kind of take your own memories and create new ones for your characters in as detailed a way as you can in the time that is given. People balk at the six-month rehearsal process.

THE DEADBOLT: This is all LONG before the cameras roll. There's no improv on-screen?

HAWKINS: Oh no, there's no improvisation on-screen.

THE DEADBOLT: Would you call it more co-writing? Or collaborating?

HAWKINS: It's kind of collaborating because you're improvising but there's no improvising on-screen whatsoever. Mike is quite adamant about that. Every moment and every beat has to be accounted for. It's like a rich tapestry by the time you get to filming. Even though the scenes started from improvisation, some months before they end up on screen, each one is finely tuned and honed and finely written, really, but they've all come from a very real situation where you have these characters that you know intimately well reacting in real-time to real situations that have been set up by Mike. It's a highly complex process and it's difficult to explain in the time we have.

THE DEADBOLT: I think you did. You've worked with this character for six months. I don't want to say "easier", but is it less complex when you start shooting instead of if you were just going off a memorized script because you do know her so well after all this time? Is the actual filming process easier because of the rehearsal process?

HAWKINS: It makes it very easy actually. It makes it seamless. You almost forget that the cameras are there. And it's not like the cameras are hidden. But because everything's been set-up to such a level that it's for the actors. It makes it easy. It's very hard work if you're wanting to create characters as real as possible but Mike is working for you to create as very real a situation as possible. So, yeah, it does make it seamless. But it's always going to be hard work if you care about the work.

THE DEADBOLT: And, in this film, I think you're in every single scene in the movie. When you're done with rehearsal and you realize you're going to be in every scene is that daunting or scary?

HAWKINS: I never allowed myself to think about it and I never really worried about the arc of the film. We didn't really know. You have a basic skeleton of a story that Mike showed me that I was aware of but, at that point, it's still the beginning of film and we still don't know how it's going to end because we hadn't actually got there in her life. The rehearsal days are plotted into the actual shoot, so it allows you to continue to explore and develop.

THE DEADBOLT: So, what's in that skeleton, roughly?

HAWKINS: That skeleton was roughly to the point...the bike, the shop, the school, the bully, driving lessons, South End, family, and then it kind of all drifts and disperses. And it's like "Oh my God, that's scary. We don't know how this is going to end." But like all Mike's work, it's very exciting. He just has to follow the characters and you have to let your actor's head go and keep yourself separate from Poppy and think "Poppy will go where she wants to go." You have to stop yourself from trying to "third eye" or "endgame" it and not push it. And just let it go. You never know where it's going to end up and that's like life really.

THE DEADBOLT: I would think that's very difficult. I would think a lot of actors would feel an urge to make a scene or a line "more dramatic" and push things in a certain direction.

HAWKINS: Maybe they do. Maybe they do. But you have to give it up to the Gods. You have to go "Okay, it's not in my power. I just have to let go."

THE DEADBOLT: Do you think it helps having been in Mike's other movies?

HAWKINS: Yes, I think it does. I think Mike prides himself in creating this rep company in a way of actors he's worked with before. It helps him because you've got this shorthand. He doesn't have to explain in every detail and lose his patience with you if you were still learning his way. He knows how you think and what makes you tick and how to BE with you, I suppose. You know each other incredibly intimately and very well. He's got this whole family of friends who just happen to act and he calls in on them and asks them to be in his films...which is lovely. Then again, a lot of directors work like that. They have a group of actors that they like working with because they've become friends, I suppose. Which is really nice.

THE DEADBOLT: It sounds like he doesn't ever want you to become your character like a method actor.

HAWKINS: Oh no. No. He instills that discipline in all of his actors very early on. That was something I couldn't get my head around initially on All or Nothing. I kept referring to my character as "me", which is a big no-no. I understand why. You are playing a character. That line needs to be clearly defined so you can talk to Mike about your character in the third person and view it and then, objectively, dissect the day of improvisation or what has just taken place as yourself. "That happened. That was quite interesting because of this. At that moment, she was feeling this." That is very important because you need to be objective about what is going on. Also, he needs to talk to you as yourself - "I need you to pursue this. What about that? Would it be interesting if this is going on?" Also, I think it can be quite dangerous if you're taking the character home at the end of the day. I like to go back to me. And she's not me. She definitely is a character. I, of course, learned a lot from Poppy, but she is a character. I think I would miss me if I didn't go back to me at the end of the day.

THE DEADBOLT: That's interesting. You are new to a large audience that I think will see this film and a lot of times when that happens I think people think "Oh, that's her." So, it's important to ask how is Poppy different from Sally?

HAWKINS: She's very different from me. I suppose I'm more...she's high-energy on a completely different scale. She's different background, different area of London, lower middle class, primary school teacher. I suppose I'm slightly quieter. I'm not so extrovert and not so confident. I'm not so sure of what I'm doing, I suppose. She's cheekier than I am. I would love to be as cheeky as she is. I'm more worried about over-stepping the mark and she doesn't really care about that. That's probably a lesson I've learned from her - to let go.

Let go with Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky, now in theaters.