The 81-year-old director has a home in Cornwall, while the 57-year-old actor moved to Los Angeles more than two decades ago in frustration at the dearth of roles available to her in the UK. This was even after she had been Oscar-nominated for Leigh’s 1996 masterpiece Secrets & Lies, in which she played an optometrist tracking down her biological mother.

Drinking tea today in a London hotel room, with Jean-Baptiste wearing circular black designer frames and Leigh resembling an off-duty farmer in his blue gilet, it is only a table that divides them. As they chat, one of them will occasionally reach across the gap in affection or solidarity. They can’t quite touch – their chairs are a shade too far apart – but the gesture is as fond as a squeeze of the hand.

“If I’m over here, I’ll drop him a line and say: ‘How about a cuppa?’” says Jean-Baptiste. Does he ever visit her in Los Angeles? “Listen,” says Leigh, licking his lips in a way that lets you know a barb is coming, “when I get to LA, my main objective is to get out again as quickly as possible.” But they keep up with each other’s work, which means he must have seen her in Peter Strickland’s 2018 high-street horror, In Fabric, where she was menaced by a killer dress.

What did he make of it? “I thought it was a very nice film,” he says diplomatically.