The Favourite Is the Year's Funniest, Most Complex Film

That The Favourite is one of the best-reviewed films of the year comes as no surprise, considering it's directed by living legend Yorgos Lanthimos, known for his recent hits The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (not to mention his 2009 masterpiece Dogtooth). He is a filmmaker who does not compromise his vision, creating utterly unique, unsettling, and mostly unexplained realities for his characters to inhabit. People talk differently and behave differently in a Lanthimos film.

Related Video: 'The Favourite' Trailer

It's a surprise then that he chose to direct The Favourite, the first film in his repertoire that he did not conceive from scratch. Instead, its screenplay is by Deborah Davis which was then extensively worked on by Lanthimos and Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara. It's a story that studies a late period in the reign of the very real Queen Anne (played here by the genius Olivia Colman) and her relationships with two women vying to be her "favourite," Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and later Abigail Masham (Emma Stone). There's backstabbing, tantrums, and some seriously underhanded shit pulled off by each woman in this love (?) triangle, but all of it's understandable, and deeply watchable.

GQ spoke with both Lanthimos and McNamara ahead of the film's release about how they felt they could tell a story centered entirely around three powerful, conflicted woman, casting the childish and occasionally imperious Anne, and the assertions that this is Lanthimos's most "accessible" movie yet.

GQ: Yorgos, this is the first film you've directed that you didn't write. What made you want to tell this story?

Yorgos Lanthimos: When I first read the original screenplay, I was immediately intrigued because it was three female leads, which you rarely see, and of course an opportunity to create these really complex female characters. It's an intimate story about these three women, but at the same time, it affected the fate of the whole world, the fate of a country, the fate of a war. Also, I've never made a period film.

I knew that I would have to work on the script and make it the kind of film that I would be interested in making. During that process, we searched for a writer with the right voice and after reading loads of playwrights and screenwriters, we found Tony in Australia and we started working on it for many years. It took us six, seven years in order to get the script where we wanted. We were doing other things, of course, in between. It was the longest I've worked on a project, on a script, and the longest development time I've taken, so it felt really much our own thing by the end of it.

Tony McNamara: I truly agree with Yorgos that it was the idea that sold me. The idea of three women, each of whom had a sort of humanity, but they also behaved badly, and they also behaved well.

There's a blend of historical reality and fiction in The Favourite but certainly, in terms of the love triangle, a lot of that is based on rumors at the time. What were you most surprised to learn was based on facts?

Lanthimos: We read whatever we could in the beginning, but then it was evident early on that we wanted to take a lot of liberties as well in order to tell a complete story. But Anne's story is incredible: the fact that she had lost so many children, how many kinds of physical weaknesses she had, how much trouble she was, the fact that these three women at that point in time had such power and could affect the fates of so many human beings. Those were things from reality that were interesting to me.

I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that it was a homosexual relationship. I think that's why even in the film, nobody really comments on that. And I hope, and from what I gather having spoken now to a lot of people, I'm very glad that nobody really focuses on that. It's just a story of people either being in love or using sex to manipulate other people.

Everyone in this film certainly has the capacity for cruelty. But in the case of the central three women, it's easy to understand their reasoning even when the actions get darker and darker throughout the film.

McNamara: I think so. We talked a lot about what they were all driven by. No one thinks they're a bad person. They're all driven by the desire for love, or safety, or power, or a mix of all of those things. We were never judging characters. We never wanted to go, "Emma's character is bad." We wanted a much more complicated dynamic, an opportunity to have three very complicated human beings who behave in a myriad of ways.

Even Abigail is working just for her own safety a lot of the time. When some of her behavior seems outlandish, it's always about survival.

McNamara: Yeah. Back then if you were a person who was a servant or lower class, there wasn't much social mobility—or any. And she had some social mobility in that she moved down, but it was very hard to move up. I loved the idea that she's desperate to do that, and that she sees an opportunity, but also, she knows this desire to get back into money and favor is costing her a little bit emotionally and a little bit of the "good" part of her, if you like. She's aware of the cost but she is also prepared to pay them because the alternative is, you're crushed.

I've been a fan of Olivia Colman for more than 10 years now, and it seems like her star's suddenly rising fast. What made her the right choice to lead this film?

Lanthimos: I had worked with Olivia before on The Lobster and so I was also very aware of her work. I think she's one of the greatest living actresses working today. I would not have made this film without Olivia. It was a little bit scary because she wasn't available when we wanted to make the film, and we had to push the film, and whenever you push a film there is always the fear of it falling apart. But I really felt that strongly about it.

She's such an interesting character, the way she has the capacity for such authority and then petulance.

McNamara: She's fascinating. And Olivia's so incredible because she's so funny, but you get such depth of tragedy and emotion. Her range is incredible.

This is a very British cast, so what made bringing Emma Stone in as Abigail Masham the right choice?

Lanthimos: Casting is very, very instinctive for me. So when I was thinking who Abigail could be, I'd seen Emma in a few things and I just felt she was very special, had a very special presence. It was something that she hadn't done before, but I felt she could pull off being this character that could do terrible things but you still kind of understand her or like her, that she could convey many things without having to do much. There's a lot of the time in the film she's just kind of observing and staying quiet, but she's able to convey so much through that.

Then I met her and I saw how smart and funny she is, and how eager [she is] to do different things and jump into challenges. We cast her two years before we ended up making the film. We got to know each other as well, so by the time we started filming, it was a little bit more comfortable. Eventually, after rehearsals it was very comfortable. A great experience.

Yorgos, I've seen people call this your most accessible film in a while. Do you agree with that?

Lanthimos: I never think about it that way when I start something or I make something. I understand why this may be more accessible than others but I really don't care so much. I just make the things I want to make and I'm interested in, and I hope people relate to them. If it's more people great, if it's less but it's something that I feel is truthful, then that's fine too.