Claire Foy Is Incredibly Funny, Unexpectedly Honest And Utterly Charming

Away from all the pomp and circumstance, Claire Foy is incredibly funny, unexpectedly honest and utterly charming. What can we say – she’s a queen!

- Sandra Parmee

IF you haven’t already binged all four seasons of the Netflix series The Crown, you really should look at the choices you’re making. The historical drama portrays the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth ll from 1947. The first season was released in 2016 but only came to South African Netflix in 2020. (Side note: South Africa was an important filming location for The Crown – scenes in the Amazon, Tonga and Australia were all filmed here!) We’ve been obsessed ever since, particularly with the marvellous Claire Foy’s portrayal of the younger queen in the first two seasons. Through her masterful performance we’re given a glimpse of what it might have been like for the young Elizabeth trying to balance her roles as mother and sovereign leader of the Commonwealth.

‘I was never playing the queen; I was playing Elizabeth Mountbatten,’ Claire says, ‘and so, in the same way that everybody who watches the show now has a deeper understanding of them as human beings, it’s the same for me. I just see what they’ve been through in their lives and have respect for her.’

She embodies Queen Elizabeth with subtlety and sensitivity. She jokes that her role involved ‘a lot of sitting’, but Matt Smith, who plays Prince Philip, described her performance slightly differently: ‘She has this amazing capacity to be still and transformative and communicative all at the same time.’ Peter Morgan, the show’s creator, says it was this minimalist approach that got Claire the part. He talks about the extraordinary complexity she brings to the role of a remarkably straightforward, uncomplicated woman in a complicated predicament. ‘Claire manages to do what almost none of the other actors we saw in auditions could do: She dared to be still.’