With 10 Oscar nominations, The Favourite is one of the year's most celebrated films, and also one of the gayest, depicting a lesbian love triangle of equally cunning women. One of our favorite aspects of The Favourite was how it handled sex: the sex scenes aren't exploitative or gratuitous and exist to teach us about the characters and serve the plot. Also, it gave us the word "cuntstruck," used to describe how Emma Stone's feminine wiles ensnare her prey, which should have been Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year.
One scene in particular has Abigail (Stone) pleasuring Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) as a way to gain her favor after getting wise to the relationship between the queen and Sarah (Rachel Weisz). According to an interview with Colman in The Sunday Times, the scene was a bit awkward to shoot.
"I tend to try to avoid anything like that as it makes me giggle and I get very embarrassed," Colman told The Times. "But we had two or three weeks' rehearsal and so we couldn't be embarrassed in front of each other. We had rolled on the floor, and giggled, and eaten together and shared everything. We'd become very good friends."
Colman explained: "Snogging is fine, because snogging Rachel Weisz is like you've won the lottery." Well, tea. "The other bit -- being fingered by Emma Stone -- we really struggled with not giggling at that," Colman added.
The Times profile also reveals that Colman hid a wet sponge between her legs "as a surprise for Stone, who jumped back in horror when she felt it." Cuntstruck, indeed.
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