Born in Carlisle and brought up in Nairobi until the age of eight, 62-year-old Mike Figgis is a creative polymath. Originally playing keyboards for Bryan Ferry’s first band, Gas Board, he went on to direct plays as well as performing and playing music as part of the fringe theatre group, The People Show. Later forming his own company, Figgis drew upon his past experiences often writing all the scores for his films. Highly regarded for his ability as a director to transform many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, namely in Stormy Monday and Leaving Las Vegas, he received Academy Award nominations for Best Directing and Best Screenplay. Despite being attracted by Hollywood he has tried to maintain a distance, successfully concentrating his efforts into documentary (On Liberty, The Blues, and Artangel: the Battle of Orgreave) and cutting edge digital filmmaking. Founding patron of the independent filmmakers online community Shooting People he has also created a new piece of camera stabilising technology called the ‘Fig Rig’. Here Mike Figgis gives Poppy de Villeneuve a great insight into the mechanics of his artistic mind.
Text by Lucia Davies
Poppy de Villeneuve is a photographer and film director. She shoots regularly for the New York Times, The Telegraph, and Vogue. Her most recent film project involved five short films set in Central Park for the New York Times. In 2010, several of her works were exhibited at Colette in Paris
