Lesbian Space Princess<\/a>, a delightful, good-natured, and slightly raunchy animated comedy from Australian writer\/directors Emma Hobbs and Leela Varghese. A wacky sci-fi romantic adventure with a number of original songs, Lesbian Space Princess is unique, entertaining, and an instant queer classic, insofar as I am allowed to unilaterally declare anything an instant queer classic.<\/p>\nIf you don’t believe me, maybe my chat with Hobbs & Varghese (insert Hobbs & Shaw joke here) will sway you. We discuss the origins of the film, its musical sensibilities, rapid-fire humor, and gorgeous art style. We also ponder a question that has stumped the world’s smartest minds for millennia: what is Australia?<\/p>\n
Zak Wojnar, TV Squad: I loved this movie. It’s just such a jolly adventure. I saw the trailer, but I didn’t know what my expectations were. I went to the screening and it’s just like, it’s so\u2026 It’s quick. It’s like 90 minutes,\u00a0 less even, but I bet the script looks like it’s longer than that because it’s so dense with jokes and it washes over you and you’re all wet and then it becomes a dry towel and you’re cozy. <\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: That’s the best ever, thank you so much!<\/em><\/p>\nThank you, thank you. So, take me back to the beginning. Well, actually, before we even talk about the movie, I have a very important question. What is Australia? What is it?<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: As a country?<\/em><\/p>\nYeah, like, what is it?<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Well, it’s\u2026 an island.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: Oh my God, I’m having an existential crisis.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Yeah, what is it?<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: It’s the largest\u2026 It’s a continent?<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Colonialist.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: It’s a racist paradise for people that like to mine.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Colonizers. We love stealing the land from people and never giving it back.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: It belongs to the queen. Oh my God, no, the King, I guess.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Yeah. It’s a great question. What is Australia? I feel like you could make a great internet video just asking people this question and watching them, like, freak out.<\/em><\/p>\nWell, we’ll see at the end of several years of interviews, every Australian I get, I will ask that question and then make it into a compilation, but I guess honing in a little bit from that, tell me about just the inception of this idea. Who gets the light bulb over their head and goes, Lesbian Space Princess, and how does that become a script and then a movie?<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: We were debating about, there was a short film, sorry, a feature film initiative in South Australia being run by a few organizations like the South Australian Film Corporation, Screen Australia, Adelaide Film Festival, to give feature filmmakers their first chance with kind of a micro grant to make a low budget feature film. So, our film was made for $1 million Australian total and it’s all grant money. Anyway, so we were talking about whether to apply or not. Also, we were a couple of one year at this point.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: She’s just telling you this because she’s about to say she came out of the shower naked to talk to me. She wants to set up that we’re a couple and that she wasn’t just acting very inappropriate like in front of me.<\/em><\/p>\nI mean, I’m a guy, I, uh\u2026 I don’t know how girls do stuff, so that could be natural. I don’t know. They go to the bathroom together.<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Yeah, you’re just over for a business meeting. You just come out.<\/em><\/p>\nYeah! Slumber parties? Guys are not privy to any female behavior and they don’t tell us!<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Yes, girls don’t tell you. (Laughs)<\/em><\/p>\nI asked! It’s similar to the what is Australia. Every time I get a new girlfriend, I say like, “What do girls do?” And they’re just like, “I don’t know.”<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: I love that. We’re watching the other day. Billy on the Street was like, “Name a woman! Name a woman!” Anyways, long story short, we were sort of, like, having this debate about this initiative and Emma had a shower.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: I had a shower and then, in the fog, emerged Lesbian Space Princess and I was like, oh my God. And then I ran out naked, dripping hair in a towel and I was like, “Babe, I got it. Lesbian Space Princess. This is a film we’re going to make.” And then you were very\u2026<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: I was like, “That’s so stupid.” I had no idea about that. And then yeah, our producer, Tom Phillips, actually, like, he was just all in on the idea. And so those two were like obsessed with it and then they convinced me. And so yeah, here we are. But yes, the light bulb moment was definitely Emma. Like, those three words are like the words that came to her.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: Yeah, title first.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: I don’t want to take credit for it. If you hate the movie, Emma came up with that. It’s all her. In fact, yeah, it was mostly Emma.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: If you hate the movie, it was my movie. If you love it, it was Leela.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: And vice versa.<\/em><\/p>\nFair, fair enough. So, you make tremendous use of this minimalist, but such an expressive art style that just feels like anything can happen. Tell me a little bit about developing\u2026 I guess, like, do you have like the art style in mind? Based on drawings that you guys do? Or do you have like a team that does that? Or how the script and the art style kind of intermingle and build off each other?<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Yeah, well, I’ll just say that Emma is the animator. So it’s very much coming from her brain. And that’s why we did an animated project, because I came from live action directing, live stand-up comedy, musical comedy. And so we meshed together. But, like, all of it is like coming from your style, right?<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: Yeah, it’s like, based on, I used to do like comics in uni. And so I kind of moved on to different kinds of animation. But it was like really fun getting to dust that art style off. Because they’re just kind of like these noodle arm freaks, and getting to play with them and bring in a really great team. We had two animators and two background artists. And they were all just so funny as people. And we were just in this shoebox, like physical shoebox office together so that like we could all just pitch ideas as well. So that was like, we created a moment where people could have the most fun with the work that they were doing.<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: Yeah. And I think the background artists, like Maddie, who was the lead background artist, had so much fun in this film and they played a lot. And I think the backgrounds like you (to Emma) worked together. Obviously, you did all the production design, but there’s just so much care that was taken with every element of the animation because of your overarching obsession with animation and love of it all. So you were just, like, leading this team who are also very sweet and also were obsessed with animation. And so it was this lovely little sardine box of really weird nerds\u2026 And I’d come in and be like, “What are you losers doing?”<\/em><\/p>\nWell, and you know that it works because, you know, because it’s the movie is so, so funny, but also punctuated by these great character moments and relationships that develop and feel so completely believable, even within the context of this wild sci-fi story. And I learned stuff like I don’t want my\u2026 Maybe I’m showing my ignorance, but I don’t want to lie about it either\u2026 But like, I didn’t know the Labrys was a lesbian symbol. Maybe that says more about me. I don’t know.<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: We didn’t know either!<\/em><\/p>\nOh, okay! Phew!<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: It was when we were writing the script, we were like, what’s a ‘lesbian weapon?’ Because we knew that there had to be like some sort of special weapon. And then I’m like, “Oh, there is like already one that exists.”<\/em><\/p>\nYeah, but you’re supposed to know! I’m not supposed to know, you are!<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: I know! I know! We’re just bad lesbians. But I think it’s a different generation thing. I think it was a big thing, like, in the 1970s, but not necessarily like for like younger generations. So it’s really fun when like older lesbians come see the movie and they’re like, oh, I feel really seen because I’m seeing like the Labrys, and they totally get it. They totally know like about it. So it’s like it’s funny.<\/em><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: Yeah.<\/em><\/p>\nWell, now I’m going to have to ask all of my lesbian friends. And then if they don’t know, I’m going to be like, “Well, let me a Straight White Man explain to you the lesbian symbol.”<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: Wait, wait, wait. Do you know\u2026 Where does a mansplainer get their water from?<\/em><\/p>\nI do, but I want to hear you say it.<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: A “Well, Actually!”<\/em><\/p>\nThat is, yes. I mean, you know, I think every guy goes through their pretentious phase in like middle school. And most of us would like to think that we grow out of it. But every once in a while you meet someone who’s just like, oh, yeah, that guy, that guy peaked at 12. But back to the movie. Oh, my gosh. Tell me about the songs. Just, I don’t even know where to start with the songs. Tell me. Tell me about\u2026 All of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n(Emma points to Leela)<\/em><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: I wrote the songs because I always knew I wanted to put music into the film. And the idea behind it is that it’s the album that Willow says they’re writing. And every song that you hear before you meet Willow is a part of the album. And it’s about that experience of meeting Saira. And so when we figured out that Willow was like a musician, that was really exciting because it was a quirky way to bring the songs into the narrative, you know, and not make it like some full-blown musical. It’s a little bit like different in the terms of how the music gets used in the film. But I had a bit of like an episode because there was a point where Emma was like, “If you don’t put songs in the movie at this script level, this is the third draft, they’re not going to make it in.” And so I wrote the songs just over the course of one week and kind of lost my mind because, like, that’s all I kind of did. And then our script mentor like read that draft and I remember meeting with her, her name’s Alex White, and she was like\u2026 “Is it like a musical now? Like, where did all these songs come from?” She didn’t think they were written. She thought we just decided to say, “and a song happens.” And I was like, no, I built the songs. They’re written. We just need to get them produced for the film, and then collaborated with our amazing sound designer and composer. He also produced the songs with me. So, Mike Darin produced the songs as well. But like, yeah, essentially it all started with the “Here I Go” song, which is the one when she’s in the spaceship looking out the window and that was there at the pitch level. But we hadn’t quite figured out the rest, how we would bring music into the rest of the film. But we always knew that we wanted it to be a part of it. And our next project, Emma said she thinks we should just\u2026 She’s given me permission to just go full blown musical. So like, you know, more like it’s actually a musical where the characters like sing and that’s just part of the story. So yeah, I just love music! I feel like they mesh together, animation and music. They should exist together because they work so well.<\/em><\/p>\nI can’t imagine the movie without those songs. What can you tell me about your next project? Is it Lesbian Space Princess-adjacent or is it all ‘Top Secret’ still?<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: Not top secret. We’ve got a whole bunch of stuff that we’re doing, like live-action and animation. But in terms of animation, it’s like lesbians. The idea is that lesbians should just conquer every genre in the space. So fun sci-fi. Lesbians are on the moon. That’s done. Now we’re like looking at fantasy just because there’s not enough like lesbian fantasy characters, in my opinion.<\/em><\/p>\nLesbian unicorn.<\/strong><\/p>\nLeela Varghese: It might involve witches.<\/em><\/p>\nWitches. OK! Do you think, not to put the cart in front of the horse or to be like the guy in the suit with the cigars, like, “Franchise!” Do you ever imagine yourself going back to the Lesbian Space Princess well?<\/strong><\/p>\nEmma Hobbs: So, our production company also makes games. So if there was going to be more Lesbian Space Princess content, I would pitch a like Kiki the Destroyer roguelite dating sim.<\/em><\/p>\nI would play the hell out of that!<\/strong><\/p>\nRelated: TV Squad Movie Review: Lesbian Space Princess<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of my favorite movies this year is Lesbian Space Princess, a delightful, good-natured, and slightly raunchy animated comedy from Australian writer\/directors Emma Hobbs and Leela Varghese. A wacky sci-fi romantic adventure with a number of original songs, Lesbian Space Princess is unique, entertaining, and an instant queer classic, insofar as I am allowed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2119926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[402416,402418,402417,402415,385942],"class_list":["post-2119925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-emma-hobbs","tag-hobbs","tag-hobbs-varghese","tag-leela-varghese","tag-lesbian-space-princess"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Lesbian-Space-Princess-WriterDirectors-Emma-Hobbs-Leela-Varghese.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2119925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119927,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119925\/revisions\/2119927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2119926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2119925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2119925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2119925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}