Alex Casey talks to Aaron Yap, the New Zealander behind the viral interview format adored by movie fans worldwide.
For the last few years, the showbiz publicity circuit has become dominated by novelty interview formats. Celebrities now answer questions while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings, or playing with puppies, or in the middle of a lie detector test. They are emptying out their handbags, finishing Google autocomplete questions, going on chicken shop dates. All these elaborate setups, and yet one simple question asked by Letterboxd can often reveal more than all of them combined: what are your four favourite movies?
Some are filled with fear (“nothing could prepare me for this,” says a flummoxed Scarlett Johansson) whereas others breeze through without hesitation (“John Borman’s Deliverance, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear,” says Bong Joon-Ho). Putting the question to everyone from Snoop Dogg to Paul Mescal, Olivia Rodrigo to Peter Jackson, Four Favourites provides a welcome breath of fresh air on social media feeds thanks to its relaxed style and often insightful answers.
Aucklander Aaron Yap is the head of social media for Letterboxd, the New Zealand-founded website where movie fans can log, review and share what they have been watching. He was an early adopter of the platform in 2013, less than a year after it launched. “As someone who watches a lot of films, it really filled that gap for me in terms of tracking my movie watching and being able to discover new films,” Yap says. During the pandemic, when the platform exploded globally, he got his “dream job” when the opportunity arose to run their Instagram account.
“In the early days, I always looked at it like a bit of a scrapbook,” he says. “I’d been a Tumblr baby and loved that curation of things you love and things you want to share with your followers. It was a very open playground for me to be creative and just test things out.”
As TikTok and shortform video started to take over and Yap was promoted to the head of social media for the rapidly-growing company, he began to think about new formats that could work for Letterboxd on social media. Since the beginning, users of the platform had been invited to pick their own four favourite films when building their profile, and Yap says it had quickly become a “massive feature” of the site. “It almost encapsulates who you are as a Letterboxd member and who you are as someone who loves film,” he says.
There was also something about the number four that struck a fruitful balance between freedom and restriction. “If you get five picks, it’s much easier to choose, because the fifth one is like a lifeboat,” laughs Yap. “People get really riled up because, for some reason, it’s not as easy as three and it’s not as open as five. It’s not life or death, but there’s still some stake to it.” And whether you prefer Godard or Die Hard, the answers always reveal something about you. “There’s definitely a part of you that you are sharing with the world by making those decisions.”
Previously trialled as a podcast, one of the earliest outings for Four Favourites on camera was during the 2022 virtual junket for Fresh, a rom-com starring Daisy Edgar Jones and Sebastian Stan. “We were still finding the footing of the format and we hadn’t quite settled on if it was going to be four posters in the graphics or just a single poster, but the concept of talking about four favourite films was definitely there,” says Yap. “Then it was just about playing around, tweaking it, and trying to nail it in a way that would start to gain traction.”
In its infancy, Yap says Four Favourites was a much harder sell to the junket-sphere. “Publicists didn’t quite understand it – why are you talking about your favourite films and not the film that you’re there to promote?” Despite initial confusion, they soon hit their stride with early standouts, with Yap singling out Paul Mescal at the Toronto Film Festival in particular. “He was just kind of hanging around and we pulled him in,” he says. “The vibe of that was what I had envisioned – just casually chatting to your friend who is talking about films they love.”
While there have since been mega-viral instalments such as Tom Hanks, Cillian Murphy and Emma Stone, Yap has his own four favourite Four Favourites. There’s Pamela Anderson waxing lyrical about Gena Rowland’s performance in A Woman Under the Influence, and her love of French Wave. “It was just such a relaxed interview, but from someone who clearly loves movies and cinema and knows how to communicate that to an audience,” says Yap. “I think people watching are receptive to that sort of level of passion.”
He also shouts out the Four Favourites with the cast of Companion, who gave “100% with every interview” on the red carpet, before dropping two “deep cuts” that hold a special place in his heart. “One is with musician mxmtoon, she’s a Letterboxd member and loves movies, but also knew how to talk about the platform.” The final favourite was a special edition they did at the Berlin Film Festival starring real life Letterboxd users. “Sometimes they just feel like a breath of fresh air, it is refreshing to have our actual members being able to have that space.”
And it wouldn’t be an interview about Four Favourites if we didn’t ask Yap to share his own four favourite films. Like the most seasoned of pros, he’s ready to go with Seconds (“very ahead of its time, black and white film, striking cinematography”), Umbrellas of Cherbourg (“I had never really gone to musicals, but this one changed my perception in a big way”), The Passenger (“existential road movie about this man who assumes the identity of an arms dealer”) and Hanabi (“a gangster film that balances brutality with a more introspective, tranquil side”).
While film discovery remains at the heart of Four Favourites – “we just want people to watch more movies and find films they haven’t heard of” – a surprising byproduct is the way that Four Favourites has since taken on a life of its own. “We’ve seen people in Russia having costume parties and doing four favourites, the London School of Economics doing Four Favourites, and even FedEx did their own twist on Four Favourites,” laughs Yap. “People that you wouldn’t normally expect to take part in this have found some value in using the format too.”
Though there’s still many stars on the Four Favourites wish list, including everyone from Christopher Nolan to Carrie Coon, Yap is continuing to take the format outside of movie stars – with interviewers now stationed in LA, New York, London and Australia, there’s now plenty of opportunity to diversify. “Beyond film talent, we really want to get Four Favourites from different areas of society,” he says. More recently they have been interviewing more musicians and sports teams, including a particularly charming episode with the Brooklyn Nets.
“Being able to reach even more people with this would be pretty exciting,” he says. “Because, at the end of the day, everyone has a favourite movie.”
