‘The Favourite’ cast spent two weeks playing games before filming started.
Nicholas Hoult – who portrays politician Robert Harley in the period comedy-drama – admitted director Yorgos Lanthimos has a "bizarre, unconventional" way of making movies and rehearsals with his co-stars including Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone involved running through their lines while undertaking bizarre tasks.
He recalled of the two-week period: "We’d have to say our lines, but someone was stood behind the person you were doing the scene with and they were dancing, and you had to copy their dance but not let it affect how you talk.
"Then we’d all get in line and walk in sync back and forth and say the scenes as quickly as possible, but after each line you’d have to say ‘what what’. And you’d do the whole scene like that.
"And he’d just watch for two weeks, no input or direction apart from what the game was."
The 29-year-old actor admitted he had very little guidance on his character from the director.
He told ES magazine: " I said in the audition, ‘What’s this character like, do you think?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know, we’ll see.’ And we never spoke about the character again."
One of the things that attracted Nicholas to the movie was the witty script.
He said: "I’ve never read a period drama that was fun. They can be a bit of a slog.
"Sometimes there are incredible stories and incredible people but the dialogue can be really dry… Pretty much every line I get to say here is a dream. So that’s brilliant."
The role is unlike anything the ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ star has taken on in the past and he admitted he deliberately looks for work that won’t leave him typecast.
He said: "I don’t want people to walk into a film thinking, oh, he’s in that so I know what he’s going to do. That’s boring for me and boring for them."
Nicholas Hoult played Favourite games
