The Father

If you want to spend half an hour in the presence of warm and animated, intelligent company then you could do a lot worse than check out the French premiere Q&A which is the chief extra on Lionsgate's Blu-ray and DVD release of The Father.

Director Florian Zeller and his stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman, who play the father and daughter in the film, talk to Variety's Paris-based correspondent Elsa Keslassy about the origins of the screenplay through to the performances and their favourite scenes. As always, with these sorts of things, there's a lot of mutual respect. Alongside this, though, are some interesting observations, not least Zeller's surprise, when having written the play, that people who saw it found it "cathartic" and "wanted to share their own stories". Hopkins, meanwhile, has a bit of Stanislavski to share, while Colman proves it's possible to be natural and engaging even over Zoom.

The package is rounded out by three deleted scenes, one with Hopkins and Colman, and two between Coleman and Rufus Sewell, who plays her character's boyfriend in the film. The acting is as faultless as in the finished film but it's easy to see why the latter two snippets were cut, in particular, as they would have only weakened the film's ambiguous intensity.

Zeller notes he hopes to adapt his play The Son for the screen next and, since this Q&A was taken it has gone into production featuring Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern and Vanessa Kirby, which bodes extremely well for the result.