'I want to entertain people'

When I appear at the door of Mike Leigh's office - a cosy Soho hideaway in a building he shares with a lady who claims to be busty, blonde and new in town - he looks as though he doesn't know whether to throw his arms around me or punch me in the teeth. The veteran British director is delighted to have been presented with the

It's a charge to which Leigh offers a vigorous defence. 'Vera Drake uses a Higginson syringe, which was a standard piece of equipment of the time. The only people who carried out abortions with knitting needles and sharp instruments were people who didn't know what they're doing. There have always been women, in all societies throughout history, who performed this role. There were women who did exactly what Vera Drake did, without payment, and that is a historical fact.'

Just to prove it, he picks up an A4 piece of paper and rattles off a list of historians, research specialists and medical practitioners who provided him and his cast with background information. It goes on for some time. 'However,' he concludes, 'it always helps if coverage of your film escapes the arts pages and ends up being discussed on the comment or the lifestyle pages.'

He was only too happy to take his place at the podium on Sunday, when his film was honoured in a glitzy ceremony at the Savoy. 'I've never been impressed,' he rumbles, 'by that quasi-hippy notion of not turning up to collect an award as an act of protest against the establishment. I'm in showbiz. And I went into

showbiz to entertain people. If my films are not entertaining then there's very little point in my making them.'

So it's safe to assume that the trio of Oscar nominations garnered by Vera Drake - best actress for Imelda Staunton, best director and best original screenplay for Leigh - brought nothing but pleasure to the director. Did he punch the air? Dance on the table? 'I was sitting in the office of my publicist,' he recounts, 'watching the announcements on the telly. And we'd sent out for noodles from Wagamama. Just as they were reading my name out, I was lifting up a piece of chicken. And I'm not sure that this piece of chicken actually reached my mouth.'

And when he'd wiped the soy sauce from his trousers? 'We weren't so surprised by Imelda's nomination. Everything had been tending towards that. But I was rather taken aback to hear my own name along with those of Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese.' He allows himself a brief gloat at the yoking together of his name with theirs. 'But I've no chance, of course.'

For the past four decades, Mike Leigh has been using his celebrated improvisational technique to craft feature films and TV plays that are part of the national consciousness. There's the ghastly couple of Nuts In May making their own in-car entertainment; Alison Steadman handing round cheesy nibbles in Abigail's Party; David Thewlis staggering through the streets in Naked; Timothy Spall giving his Emperor in Topsy-Turvy. You could probably identify his work without seeing his name on the credits, just by observing the distinctive way in which his performers interact. 'I've always made films,' he says, 'without compromise and with complete integrity.'

This policy has twice ensured Leigh an invite to the Oscars: Topsy-Turvy and Secrets And Lies were both nominated in multiple categories. 'It's rather like being on another planet,' he reflects. And he discourses upon a little-known aspect of Oscar night etiquette. 'If you want to go for a pee you have to be quick. When Christine Blundell won her Oscar for best make-up on Topsy-Turvy, her husband didn't see her receive it. He'd gone out to the toilet and the security people closed the doors and wouldn't let him back in.' So the Los Angeles Kodak Theatre is full of Hollywood's A-listers crossing their legs in renal discomfort? 'Well,' he ventures, 'that show does go on for a very long time.'

And if a little golden man is pressed into Leigh's hands on Sun 27 Feb, there's a chance that it will transform the kind of movies he makes. Leigh's name is strongly associated with a kind of chamber drama - but if a producer gave him the money, he'd be mad keen to make a big-budget epic. 'Don't sound so surprised,' he chides, when I make a gobsmacked remark about camels, elephants and legionnaires. 'When I think of the films that have inspired me, I think just as much of the battle on the ice from Alexander Nevsky [the Russian epic] as anything else.'

So might we one day see Mike Leigh's version of that other Alexander, The Great? He gives an indignant snort. 'It'd probably be rather better than other versions of his story that have made it into the cinema.' And does he have a particular idea in mind? 'I'm certainly not telling you,' he sniffs. 'And anyway,' he adds, 'as far as I'm concerned, Vera Drake is an epic.'