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‘The Favourite’ cast members talk about rivalry, their experience on set, and working with director Yorgos Lanthimos
Los Angeles — We were lucky to catch with the cast and director of the historical period film, “The Favourite” twice: in London and in Los Angeles.
Directed by the award-winning Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lobster,” “Dogtooth,”), "The Favourite" is about two cousins, Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) and Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), who are trying to upstage each other to be the court favourite of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) in the early 18th century.
Nicholas Hoult appears as Robert Harley and Joe Alwyn as Samuel Masham.
Below are excerpts of our interviews with them.
Emma Stone
On rivalry:
The rivalry in this film, the stakes are so high between these people and Abigail, my character’s struggle, will be being put back on the street where she has had terrible things happen to her. For Rachel’s character Sarah, it’s the England falling apart beneath her and not her being there anymore if Abigail takes over her role.
Rivalry isn’t so much petty jealousy. It has so much to do with the country hanging in the balance. That version of rivalry makes sense to me.
On the playing the sexual scenes:
For this film, those scenes were pretty easy, because I was with Olivia, who is my dear, funny friend. She makes everything so comfortable.
Then Joe, when we were just laughing about what I had to do and it was mostly funny behind the scenes and not uncomfortable.
Yorgos also creates a very comfortable environment and a very private set, and no one that doesn’t need to be there is there, so he is protective in that way.
I also loved it for this film, because it is so well written that all of the sexuality and all of those aspects made perfect sense to me. There was nothing gratuitous and there was nothing that I saw as done for any reason other than furthering the story.
Abigail’s relationship to her own sexuality is much removed. I don’t know what her actual urges are. She is using that to as a means to an end, so they are very important scenes to see where she is mentally — that on her wedding night is ranting about how she is unsafe and she is vulnerable and the terror will be back at any time and then what happens to her?
She’s not even thinking about what she is doing. So I thought all of that was really exciting to get to do, because it’s so important for a character and it made it very easy.
On the camaraderie on the set:
Yorgos made us play games with each other and really be clowns. It was like clowning exercises that you would learn like theater school, which meant that we could embarrass ourselves in front of each other and make each other laugh and then felt really safe with each other and then we linked arms and went into the first day of filming as a bit of a team, like theater, where when you go on stage you are all relying on each other in that way.
So it did create a wonderful atmosphere and Olivia Colman is a real icebreaker. She doesn’t let things get cold or tense. She invited everybody over for dinner and we did Karaoke. We just had so much fun together off set too, that it just became a warm environment. It was great and it would have been hard to do if it wasn’t the energy.
On the directing style of Yorgos Lanthimos:
Yorgos’ doesn’t really discuss much with his actors. I mean he does as a person. You feel very comfortable around him, but we don’t go into character, motivation, anything like that. So in rehearsals, it was goofy. It was like games and him getting us to play with each other but no real character description. Then on set, it’s pretty similar. You know that you are not doing it the way that he has imagined it, but he also leaves a lot of room open for you to discover it through what it is that you are trying to do. So he is in no way controlling as a director, except visually.
Visually, he has a very specific aesthetic. But performance wise, he comes in thinking this is the way that the character needs to be played and he lets you find it and discover it. If it feels off course, that is when he steps in. But he does it very simply, like you are thinking too much, go ahead, go again.
On what drives her:
I think passion. Creativity and passion, and the only way to do that is to have a support system, so that is the basis of that.
On turning 30:
I am very excited. I am really happy to be moving into another decade and I got a little gloomy the week before I turned 30. I think because of all the memories that you have over the last decade, but people turning different decades say that pretty much every decade.
But now I am just really happy. I don’t know what is going to happen in my 30's and I am very much looking forward to it and very happy to be out of my 20s. That’s for sure.
Rachel Weisz
On rivalry:
Abigail Hill and Sarah Churchill have definitely become rivals, Emma Stone’s character and mine. I think at the beginning of the story, my character is in charge and holds the power and this ingénue comes to court who turns out not to be an ingénue, I completely and totally underestimate her and I fall for her flattery, which was a weak thing to do.
It’s very weak if you are in charge to fall for flattery, you have to not do that. So I fall for her flattery and then she topples me and we become rivals.
We are playing different games. She is trying to survive, which I Rachel respect and I totally understand that. She just needs to survive, but my character is hopefully trying to, she is running a country and deeply cares for England and cares about it. She is a proper old fashioned politician. I wish there were more of them now. She does care what people think of her.
On Yorgos’ style of making them relax:
He would give us exercises to do like a game, where you have to say the lines from the scene very fast and jump backwards across the room whilst holding hands and trying to make a human pretzel. So you have someone’s bottom in your face, and I mean, properly ridiculous games. But the idea was to break the ice so we wouldn’t feel embarrassed. Yorgos like the absurd and the ridiculous, so he got us to feel ridiculous a little bit.
On becoming a new mom again:
I definitely know that there won’t be another one and when I had my son, I was like oh maybe I will have two more or three. I didn’t know. So it’s very precious having some perspective from being more mature and older.
The preciousness of a new life and family, it just means so much more. My son was a miracle and it was an incredible experience, but just the experience of doing it again older is very deep and very precious. I am very lucky.
On the kind of mother she is:
I might be a bit of a pushover. I am not super strict, I would say. I love it. I just love it. So I think I am a happy mom, a very happy mom. But I am British and I will always be British and you can’t take that out. I didn’t even take your identity out of yourself and I am a British mother, a happy British mother.
Olivia Colman
On what inspired her to do the movie and what surprised her about Queen Anne:
Well it wasn’t really inspiration so much as I love Yorgos and I love the script so it was just a, "yes please." I knew nothing about Queen Anne before I started. I can’t remember that being a subject that we covered at school. Actually lots of English friends of mine can’t remember learning about Queen Anne, which is extraordinary because she’s such a fascinating character. I’d have probably listened unusually well at school had we studied her. So it was all new to me.
On the challenges of portraying her:
I did actually twist my ankle so I could use that as a limp, which was quite nice. It looks harder than it was because Emma and Rachel had to wear corsets and I wore a big nightie for most of the time. I was quite comfortable.
It was actually just quite enjoyable to be her. Limping was easy because I had a limp. The main thing was that when we had the prosthetics on, the legs, it took a long time to do those. The stroke was a bit difficult. But all quite fun. The harder it is the more fun it is for me so it doesn’t feel like a difficult thing.
On filming at the Hatfield House at Hertfordshire:
The Hatfield House was located north of London and it’s a private family house. The same family have lived there for 400 years. Some of the main rooms are open to the public sometimes. There’s some months of the year when it’s open. The gardens are incredible. Each generation added a bit. When one bit fell down, then they did something else. So there are different machinations of it throughout the centuries. It’s an extraordinary place.
They didn’t use electric lighting; it was all candle light and natural light. There’s one long golden ceilinged corridor that we used quite a lot because the candlelight on that looked incredible. But it’s worth a visit; it’s an amazing place. The royal family have had to go through different branches and sort of unrelated to a lot of these starting places, whereas a lot of these old families have managed to keep one family in that same house for 400 years, which the royal family never managed.
Nicholas Hoult
On walking on three-inch heels:
I love playing characters that transform physically as much as possible, whether it's Mad Max or X-Men characters with lots of make-up and every element of that just adds to the character so particularly with this, Nadia Stacey gave me these big wigs and then a lot of make-up and then Sandy Powell created these wonderful costumes but they're big and you have to learn how to move and incorporate them into the character particularly Harley was considered one of the most dandy'ish of that era so he had three inch heels that Sandy would try and teach me to walk in. There's this wonderful kind of inner way of carrying yourself and also learning how to move within those things and manipulate the make-up and to get the best performance out of it.
I practiced walking on those three inch heels as much as possible. It's very uncomfortable because I first tried on a pair that was about a one-inch heel and I was like this is doable. I can manage this and then once we upped it to three I was like, you know I'm 6' 2”, 6' 3” so once you put that on and a wig I'm tottering around at nearly 7' tall. It was quite an image. Luckily, I had a cane to help balance myself out.
On who he has met from the royal family:
From the British Royal Family, I've met Prince William. I would like to meet Prince Harry at some point I guess, and Meghan. I am not a Royalist as such but I like what they represent and the history of it and the good it does for the British economy and everything so.
It was lovely meeting Prince William. He was very charming, fun and very down to earth, nice guy. I can't imagine what it would be like to be raised as a potential future king but he seemed very normal and level headed. It was good to meet him.
Joe Alwyn
On the camaraderie on the set:
It was just so fun right from the two-week rehearsal that we had beforehand because everyone turned up not quite knowing what to expect and probably turned up with their history books and their conversations ready about their character and social etiquette and the period.
Yorgos just didn't want any of that. He wanted us just to jump around the room and have fun with each other and look ridiculous in front of each other which we did and completely humiliated ourselves in front of each other.
Then we got to shooting and everyone was very relaxed and willing to jump in and just be silly but it's a lighthearted film. It's also quite dark in points and poignant but it is a comedy as well and especially the women who lead it. They're all so fun to be around and also when they're not shooting. It was just so much fun.
On the dancing in the movie:
It's funny because the script just says they dance, so stepping into it, I don't think we had a clue what he was going to do or what he had planned but we worked with a choreographer named Constanza who was this brilliant Argentinean choreographer for a couple of weeks during the rehearsal period and with Yorgos too.
He sent us some inspirational little clips and links to dance moves and wanted us to come up with our own ideas. We just put it together that way but I don't think we knew it was going to be this strange mix of modern madness but within like this very rigid structure which is why it's so well, hopefully funny but it was a lot of fun during rehearsals.
Yorgos Lanthimos
On having fun, making the movie:
Filming is very stressful for me and I think for most filmmakers because of the pressure of time and everything needs to be done and everyday you're striving to get the best that you can. Although it was a fun set and the actors, I think they can attest to that themselves, they really had a good time and a lot of love while filming.
For me it was a stressful part, but, rehearsals I really enjoyed because it was really playful and we played a lot of games, fooled around and everyone got to know each other really well, became very comfortable with each other. It was really two or three weeks that we had a lot of fun. That transferred on set. — LA, GMA News
