The Favourite: 18th-century Court Intrigue

Innovative Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos reinvented the British period drama with the film The Favourite. It is set in the early 18th century, but although the story is based on historical personalities and events, their characters and personal relationships are artistically reimagined. The movie centres on Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1702 until her death in 1714, and uses her life to tell a tale of love and the pursuit of power.

British actor Olivia Colman won Best Actress Oscar for the leading role and the film also features brilliant performances by Rachel Weisz as Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Emma Stone as Abigail Masham, her cousin and rival for the Queen’s attention. It was filmed at the 17th-century stately home Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at the 16th-century Hampton Court Palace in London, and Lanthimos worked with two screenwriters for eight years to produce a script. His aim was to tell a story of three complex women that still seems relevant today, as the director explained. 

Yorgo Lanthimos (mild Greek accent): I was just immediately intrigued by this story and the fact that it was three women that at some point in time had such power… but then we invent a lot of things in order to construct the film in a way that it was relevant no matter what the period was, relevant to today as well. This film is not extremely loyal historically speaking… we were inspired by these people and various events.

AN EMOTIONAL COCKTAIL

Rachel Weisz was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting performance. She delighted in the diversity of the script. She talked about the way Lanthimos put the film together to visually and emotionally amaze and disconcert audiences.  

Rachel Weisz (English accent): The script had tonal shifts in the way that the film does, so at moments it was historical drama, very seriously so, at moments it was absurd, at moments it was very funny and ridiculous... other moments it was a love story, it was heart-breaking. But I couldn’t have imagined them as Yorgos Lanthimos finally painted them. He makes a real cocktail of things: if it’s earnest and people are baring their heart he’ll very quickly undercut that with some humour. So, you’re never completely safe in some comfortable zone, you’re always going to be swept along to something else!

INCREDIBLE LOCATIONS

American actor Emma Stone gives a convincing performance as a British character in the film. She spoke about what an incredible opportunity it was to film in historic locations.

Emma Stone (American accent): As the only American in the cast, this wasn’t part of my history. I hadn’t done historical period drama before. It was really special to be in Hatfield House, to be wearing these incredible costumes… it was gorgeous to look up and see that gold ceiling and know that Queen Anne’s actual throne was sitting in one of the rooms!

VISUAL AIDS

Olivia Colman plays Queen Anne as an outrageous yet deeply tragic figure, who suffers from a painful condition called gout and keeps pet rabbits to represent each of her seventeen failed pregnancies and dead children. She talked about how the way each scene was set to reflect the womens’ relationship. 

Olivia Colman (English accent): That was just so exciting, that these three women are the ones in charge, manipulating each other, and pulling the strings; the art department were incredible…  when Sarah’s looking after the Queen, all of the snacks in the room are very healthy, there’s nuts and dried fruit... and when Abigail’s looking after her, there’s cake and sugared things and hot chocolate! Anyone who’s a bit of a film nerd will notice which one’s the right one to be looking after the Queen!

AUTHENTICITY

Rather than explore the motivations of the characters, Lanthimos focused on building confidence between his actors and then placed them immediately in their roles. As Weisz explained, this spontaneous method helped the authenticity of their performances. 

Rachel Weisz: He has a very distinctive cinematic language, it’s not something that he talks about or analyses, he doesn’t talk to you about your motivation or psychology ever... but he directs you meticulously, so it’s a very unusual process. He thinks that when actors become aware of what it is they’re doing it loses its spontaneity... and I think he’s probably right.

WAYS OF SEEING

From the use of a fisheye lens to create expansive distorted views, to unusual close-ups, the filming of The Favourite is highly innovative. Stone spoke about the way silences were used as effectively as dialogue. 

Emma Stone: It was fascinating to watch the way that he was shooting it. It was very interesting to see what angles he was choosing on each character, how we were all shot a little bit differently. I noticed him getting really close up to my face and doing shots in scenes where I didn’t say anything... that was pretty entrancing on set, just watching that process.

THE CHARM OF EMMA STONE

Oscar-winning actor Emily ‘Emma’ Stone was born and raised in Arizona. A nervous child, she found performing before an audience helped her overcome panic attacks. Stone made her debut in a stage production of The Wind in the Willows at age eleven. On relocating to Los Angeles, she played small parts on TV before making her film debut in teen comedy Superbad. More comedies followed: post-apocalyptic horror comedy Zombieland, starring Woody Harrelson in the lead, and a major role in the unconventional teen comedy Easy A; the latter earning her a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. Stone joined an all-star cast in Crazy, Stupid, Love, and the Deep South-set drama The Help (2011). She also appeared as a recovering drug addict in the black comedy Birdman. 

After featuring in The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, Stone appeared in two Woody Allen films: Magic in the Moonlight (2014) and Irrational Man (2015), the latter also starring Joaquin Phoenix. That same year, Stone played a controversial role in film Aloha, in which she was cast by director Cameron Crowe to play a character of Chinese and Hawaiian descent. She responded to criticism of ‘whitewashing’ (casting high-profile white actors in roles ethnically unsuitable for them) with acknowledgement: “I’ve learned… about the insane history of ‘whitewashing’ in Hollywood and how prevalent the problem truly is.” 

In 2016, director Damien Chazelle cast Stone as an aspiring actress in the romantic musical La La Land, for which Stone won an Oscar.

The depth the actor brought to her nice/nasty comic role as Abigail Masham in The Favourite inspired her casting as the classic character Cruella de Vil in the film Cruella. This live-action feature film explores the origins of a character invented by Dodie Smith for her 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians.