t is an appropriately it in the sense of a spirit, a silent strength It was just one steady bulldozer of emotion serene afternoon in which speaks – from somewhere beyond pushing me all the way through.” Regent’s Park: hazy that blue-eyed gaze – of a certain knowing. For season two – in which we see the golden summer light, Bubbling and chatting and sharing jokes, Queen entering middle age, with all the long shadows and the as a lunch companion Foy, in dressed- accompanying crises (particularly within smell of cut grass. We down, fresh-faced mode wearing a blue her marriage) that that might entail, and her walk, Claire Foy and denim Citizens of Humanity boiler suit, sister Margaret embarking on an explosive I, from a long, chatty silver Converse All Star hi-tops and with relationship with society photographer Tony lunch in Primrose Hill her hair loosely braided back from her face, Armstrong Jones (Matthew Goode) – Foy towards the West End, behaves like an old friend. But behind the had a different kind of hardship to contend where she is due to drop jokes – the stories of her two-year-old with. As well as the pressure of the success of off a signed contract with daughter, Ivy, thinking that every stately the show, and always being “mindful of her agent. The brown home or town hall they ever pass is complacency”, she had to juggle the demands envelope in the small “Mummy’s work”, and her entire extended of her work – a rigorous, sometimes six-day- ihemp carrier bag she is family trying to use her as a means to get to a-week shooting schedule sustained over swinging commits her to Matt Smith (her co-star in The Crown) and nine months – with the needs of her family. an upcoming project: Damien (La La Land) “basically lick his face” – there is a secret self Ever the company player, Foy – who, for the Chazelle’s First Man perhaps, playing the that is harder to reach. This self is the one most part, had Ivy with her on location wife of Ryan Gosling’s Neil Armstrong, or whose parents divorced when she was eight, (“she’s basically in love with Matt [Smith]”) Fede Alvarez’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web whose single mother then struggled to make – took it upon herself to speak up for – the fourth in the Millennium series – in ends meet, whose early teenage years (more everyone when, on occasion, the demands of which she will play Lisbeth Salander. on which later) were marred by a battle with the production became too much. “Because I One thing is absolutely certain. This juvenile arthritis, and whose was number one on the call brown envelope does not contain a contract later teenage years were sheet, I was in a position to committing her to a third season of The shattered by the discovery – “If this had stand up for my department Crown, Netflix’s £100 million drama series and subsequent treatment and say, ‘I don’t think you can written by Peter Morgan, in which she gave with steroids – of a benign happened work people on a Sunday. a masterfully poised Golden Globe- tumour growing behind one And no, I’m not being antsy winning turn as Queen Elizabeth II. Foy’s eye. Little wonder that, when to me when and I’m not being tricky. I just commitment was to only two series – the asked if she had anything I was 23, think it’s out of order and we second of which is released next month. By in common with the Queen, all need a day at home with the end of this forthcoming season, which whose elusive combination I probably our families.’’’ spans the years between 1956 and 1963, the of delicacy and steeliness While on the one hand monarch will be approaching middle age she portrays so flawlessly, would have the success of The Crown and Foy will therefore, in the interests of Foy was reported to reply, spurred cast and crew on authenticity, be replaced by an (as yet “I guess we can both be spun into – “Everyone upped their unnamed) older actress. “To say that Claire tough old birds.” game,” says Morgan – on is going to be a hard act to follow is an Making The Crown has a vortex” the other, it played against understatement,” says Morgan. “Everything required Foy to draw on them. For Foy and Smith, in – everything – pivoted on her performance, all her deepest reserves of resilience. particular, days off from filming were spent which was faultless, by the way. Without Famously hardworking – professional and promoting the first series around the world. someone as technically brilliant and as uncomplaining to the umpteenth degree – “Eleven-hour flight there, blah, blah, blah hardworking as Claire at its centre, a show she started filming the first series a mere about the show, 11-hour flight back and like The Crown would have completely four months after giving birth to her straight back on set saying, ‘Oh, that was disintegrated.” daughter. “On the first day of filming, I glamorous.’ Not! And now I’ve got an eye Disintegrate it didn’t. If the naysayers found myself halfway up a Scottish infection…” By the time filming finished in needed proof that long-format television mountain, with engorged boobs and no May, Foy was a physical and emotional series were capable of filling a hole which a way of getting down to feed my baby,” she wreck. As the director called “Cut!” on the quick-fix society has left in our souls, The remembers. “I had to ring my husband [the final scene – an exchange between her and Crown was it. Clever writing, sumptuous actor Stephen Campbell Moore, whom she Vanessa Kirby (Princess Margaret) – disco production values and truthful performances met on the set of Season of the Witch] and lights started flashing and a spontaneous gave it a core strength and solidity not tell him to give her formula. It was like party was held on set. “And I didn’t cry unlike the 65-year reign of the woman someone had stamped on my heart and, as or laugh or feel anything particularly. All whose life it follows – whether you support I sat in a Land Rover trying to get a broken I could think was, ‘I need to go home now.’’’ her or wish to depose her – and that has also breast pump to work, I felt I’d made the To say that The Crown has been life- threaded through the tapestry of our lives. worst mistake of my life.” In retrospect, Foy changing for Foy is an understatement. On paper, there is nothing to link the two – who had a very traumatic birth involving Little more than a year ago she was relatively women – one a jobbing actress from haemorrhages and blood transfusions – unknown, aside from her complex portrayal Buckinghamshire, the other a jobbing thinks her hormonal exhaustion might of Anne Boleyn in the BBC’s Wolf Hall. monarch from the mid-20th century – and have served her well. “Because I was so Now she is a Vogue cover girl (“Who would yet… There is an essence, a certain poise, tired, I just played each moment as each have thought it? Claire Foy on the cover of which chimes. It’s there in the face, in the moment,” she explains. “I didn’t over-think Vogue!” she laughs), the star of a show that pretty plainness that simultaneously it, and I genuinely didn’t have the energy to has been watched by tens of millions around distinguishes and disappears, and it’s behind invent any emotions that weren’t there. the globe. “I know, it’s completely > 154

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