Nicholas Hoult wore three memorable wigs in Yorgos Lanthimos’s punk, puckish 18th century period drama, The Favourite. As British statesman Robert Harley, the leader of the opposition party, Hoult plots and prances around the movie’s central love-power triangle between Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), her adviser Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), and their servant Abigail Hill (Emma Stone). What was it like for Hoult to act under all that hair? “[The wigs] were pretty heavy, they were pretty warm. Robbie Ryan and Andy [Cole], the DP and main gaffer on this movie, liked to use a lot of candles,” he told Vulture at the New York Film Festival premiere of the movie Friday night. “It took a lot of teasing and hairspray to make those wigs stay how they were. I had three [wigs], and they all had individual names so I’d know.” Introducing: Barbara, Lulu, and Hattie (unfortunately, none of them flew). “Babs was the main one,” Hoult said. “Barbara — but Babs for short.”
Hoult came up with the names with Nadia Stacey, The Favourite’s hair and makeup designer. “[The wigs] were warm, and they were a fire hazard, but wonderful. I just had to balance them on top of my head. I think I was about eight feet tall by the time I had my heels and those things on.”
