Mike Leigh interview: ‘A guy in the Guardian wants to sue me for defamation of Ruskin!’

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[/audioplayer]Mike Leigh is in a cheerfully bullish mood when I meet him at the Soho Hotel. ‘Have you read today’s Guardian?’ Dammit — I should have seen that coming. ‘A guy in G2 would like to sue me for defamation of Ruskin!’ He seems almost pleased. His characterisation of the great critic as silly and effete in his new film, Mr Turner, does seem a little ungenerous. Ruskin did more for Turner than anyone. ‘That’s true,’ says Leigh. ‘Working with the brilliant young actor Joshua McGuire, I started to think how Ruskin was incredibly spoiled and cosseted by his parents… He was a prig!’ He emphasises the ‘g’ in ‘prig’ for the avoidance of doubt. ‘Turner undoubtedly had reservations about him and took the rise out of him. But the idea that the characterisation is a gratuitous pratfall is nonsense, really.