Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack play widow Nancy and sex worker Leo.EXCLUSROOM SERVICEGOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE Sophie Hyde’s sex worker tale is a true pleasure-seeker…Some directors might feel shooting a virtual two-hander almost entirely set in a hotel room is restrictive. But not Sophie Hyde (Animals). “I bloody loved it! I loved every second of it,” she chuckles, speaking to Teasers from her “shed” in Adelaide, Australia. Of course, it helps when you’ve got a cracking script from comedian Katy Brand, and Emma Thompson as your leading lady. “She wanted to do this role very much,” adds Hyde. “She related to the character and understood her as someone that she’d always wanted to play.”Nancy is looking for new experiences after a lifetime of others’ expectations.Set over a series of encounters in said room, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande “Nancy… she has accepted the boxes that have been offered,” says Hyde. “You’re a woman, you’re a mother, you’re a wife, you’re a teacher. She’s accepted what that means. And Leo often challenges her on certain beliefs that she spouts.” stars Thompson as Nancy, a widow and retired religious education teacher who decides to hire the titular sex worker (Peaky Blinders star Daryl McCormack). After a staid marriage, the nervy Nancy resolves to open herself up to new experiences.

“Nancy… she has accepted the boxes that have been offered,” says Hyde. “You’re a woman, you’re a mother, you’re a wife, you’re a teacher. She’s accepted what that means. And Leo often challenges her on certain beliefs that she spouts.”

Hyde feels that’s sadly all too common in women. “Are we raised to believe that we can go after what we want?

Definitely not. We’re raised to think about how to look after everybody.”

Yet what brought two-time Oscarwinner Thompson to play Nancy? On the surface, they seem poles apart.

“Emma knows that there’s some parallel universe where she could have been like Nancy,” argues Hyde. “It’s close enough to her and yet really distant from the woman that she is now. But there was something in her – or the people that she knew and grew up with – that made her feel like it was the right thing to do.”

After an initial meet-up shrouded in embarrassment, Nancy gradually warms to her male companion – which meant working out with the actors the thorny question of on-screen nudity.

“I was very clear with Emma that she didn’t have to show anything. There were ways of telling this story without a single bit of that. Emma is just a person who will confront her own fears, to do what she believes in. And that’s what she chose to do in this. So once she decided to do it, she was all in, no matter how difficult that felt.”
“ ‘Women are raised to think about how to look after everybody’  ”SOPHIE HYDEThe result is a spry audience-pleaser that has already delighted festival-goers at both Sundance and Berlin. But is it a comedy or drama? Even Hyde isn’t sure.

“I suspect I make dramas that are just really funny. I think drama can be really warm and enjoyable, and that’s what I’m interested in. I don’t want to make really dreary dramas.”
JAMES MOTTRAM GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 17 JUNE AND IS SCREENING AT SUNDANCE LONDON.