Roles for leading ladies in the golden age of Hollywood were more interesting than they are today, according to Rachel Weisz.

Women on screen in the 1940s and 1950s were allowed to be complicated, the actress said. She is is currently co-starring in The Favourite with Olivia Colman and Emma Stone, a film tipped for glory this awards season and rare because it has three female leads.

“At this present time in cinema and storytelling, it’s sadly quite unusual, I think, that all three women are so textured and layered and complex and have such different aspects to their character. They are not one thing, they are a million things each.

“Films in the ‘40s and ‘50s, they always had very complex, strong women who could be vulnerable and villainous and regal and kind and all the adjectives that you could list,” Weisz said.