Q&A: Kidman, Farrell on the surrealism of 'Sacred Deer'

TORONTO (AP) — Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos' movies aren't the sort that typically attract a stampede of Hollywood A-listers.

His films, which he writes with Efthymis Filippou, are deadpan, midnight-black comedies that carry out grim allegorical absurdities to extreme ends. Characters speak stiltedly in cliches while an intensifying menace envelopes them. Things get weird and then they get brutal.

And yet Lanthimos is not only a regular on the festival circuit (his latest, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival) but he has earned an Oscar nomination (for the script to "The Lobster") and drawn eager stars like Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone.