The Favourite

Olivia Colman and Emma Stone star in a historical movie like no other.

drops. But she had painful eyes all the time, painful legs, didn’t know if anyone loved her. I just wanted to give her a cuddle.”

In development for almost a decade, The Favourite began as a script written by Deborah Davis, before Lanthimos got involved and decided to bring in Australian writer-director Tony McNamara (The Rage In Placid Lake) to further shape the story. While Queen Anne interested the Greek director, he was keen to put his own slant on her world. “I hope it is obvious that we tried to create our own little universe,” he says. “We weren’t very loyal to what actually happened or even aspects of the period.”

Lanthimos was at ease when it came to using contemporary language in the film. The clothing – designed by triple Oscar-winner Sandy Powell – “maintained the shape of costumes of the era”, says the bearded director, but used modern-day fabrics. Etiquette and the way people behave, dance and move was also not faithful to the times. “I was interested in making a period film that would have a contemporary feel to it, that would feel relevant to today.” It was immediately noticeable to the actors on set, who spent two weeks rehearsing before shooting at Hatfield House. “Yorgos wasn’t too focused on whether we were standing correctly, posturing correctly or bowing correctly,” says rising British star Alwyn. “He just wanted to focus on the relationships with us. And the rest of the world around it, we could play around with. It wasn’t too bound by the perimeters of the time, in the sense that other period films maybe are more controlled… It felt quite free.”

Hoult concurs. “A lot of historical drama scripts you read are just so boring, to be perfectly honest. You sit there and by the end, you take a couple of naps and go, ‘OK, cool, we get all the facts.’ But there’s no life to the characters. And that’s what I loved about this.” Indeed, facts – such as Queen Anne becoming the first monarch to rule over a unified Great Britain – are not the driving force here.

For Lanthimos, the heart of the story was feminine. “I just felt that it was very rare to see a film that has three female protagonists,” he says. “There is this real story of these three women that’s never been explored, that they had this position of power at some moment in time.” With Lady Sarah pushing Queen Anne to raise taxes and keep England at war with France, these ladies “actually affected the fate of so many other people – the fate of a nation, the fate of a war”.

As Colman puts it, “They did whatever they could in order to get their share of the power. As we all know, women were not given any power in any walk of life unless you were a queen. You had to befriend the Queen in order to get your portion of power, otherwise you are forgotten about, walked over, used as chattel. So the fight between these women is fascinating. The Queen is less [about] fighting. She’s sitting there with all the power, waiting to see who is going to win her over.”

Games of throne

Alongside so many male-dominated narratives, it is utterly refreshing. A case of history in the making? Maybe so.

“I thought these three women were so well drawn and complex,” says Stone, who met Lanthimos after she saw his 2009 breakthrough Dogtooth. Playing Abigail allowed the La La Land star to explore one of the more manipulative characters of her career. “She’s a survivor. She needs that kind of strength; to go back out on the street would be excruciatingly hard.”

Given Lanthimos’ desire to play loose with historical accuracies, The Favourite felt very up-to-date, says Stone. “I would say there are huge similarities [to now]. It takes place in this time period, but the way that the story was told was very modern. These women felt very modern in the context of 1705. They felt very current to me in the way people can operate and how power can affect people – what it means to love someone, what it means to protect yourself. There are a lot of scenes that are resonant.”

Stone got a “crash course” in British history, spending time at the National Portrait Gallery in London to soak up images of kings and queens. She also practised her curtsies but, most of all, worked on her English accent. “It helped me understand how out of place she might have felt and the way she had to hold herself and speak in order to ingratiate herself in the court. It was oddly helpful even though it was daunting.”

‘The fight between these women is fascinating, with the Queen waiting to see who’ll win her over’ oLIvIA coLmAN

None of this, however, quite conveys the strangeness of The Favourite, an eccentric world where – in one scene – a chubby naked man is strung up and pelted with blood oranges (all for sport, you understand). When the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival – where Colman rightly snagged Best Actress – the audience spontaneously applauded three times, including the bizarrely anachronistic scene between Masham and Sarah that includes a breakdance move.

That’s not to say Lanthimos has gone completely off-piste (even if Queen Anne, with her temper tantrums, will remind you of Miranda Richardson’s Queen Elizabeth I from Blackadder). It’s just the references are less what you might expect from British heritage cinema: films such as All About Eve and Joseph Losey’s The Servant and Sarah Kane’s play Phaedra’s Love, a re-writing of Greek tragedy Hippolytus

– “Which,” he says, “has a very particular tone; it’s very humorous but gets very dark.”

Hair apparent

The actors still had to deal with cumbersome period garb, of course. If he was almost unrecognisable as the shavenheaded, silver-sprayed Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road, Hoult goes full-on flamboyant here, underneath a towering wig. He switched between three different hair pieces. “They had names. The ‘Babs’ – Barbara – was the main wig.” Such was the weight of this epic piece, “It just changes how you have to hold yourself.”

Powell made Hoult practise walking in his heels, with the wig on, to get used to it. “It all just becomes part of how you carry yourself and the character but it was quite a fire risk at times.” With cinematographer Robbie Ryan shooting in natural light, the rooms were all candlelit. “I’d be mooching around and somebody would say, ‘Woah, get out of there! Move away!’ There was a lot of hairspray involved. Very flammable.”

Indeed, while good fun was had by all on The Favourite, nobody came away with a desire to live in the 18th Century for too long. “Oh no!” exclaims Colman. “They have no toothpaste! I can really imagine how that entire palace smelt. Nobody washed clothes. I think they squatted in the corners of rooms if they wanted a wee. Imagine. Eew.” Her face crumples. “It’s not my favourite period to go back to.”

But it does make for one fine film.

THE FAVOURITE OPENS ON 1 JANUARY.