The Guardian

Claire Foy: ‘My anxiety was a tool to survive’

She has just won an Emmy for her role in The Crown and now takes the lead in two Oscar-tipped films. So why doesn’t the British actor believe her own hype?

Claire Foy has the heebie-jeebies. The actor, who until last year played a young Elizabeth II in the Netflix drama The Crown, has spent the last few hours being photographed in a studio in London. It’s a nondescript building that sits between a janitorial supply store and a tinned tomato factory, but the place carries very distinct memories. “It’s where I did my main audition for The Crown,” Foy says, shuddering. “I was five months pregnant. They put me in a wig and – oh God – a wedding dress. I had really bad carpal tunnel, and a swollen nose, and my lips were just massive. I had to flirt with Winston Churchill. I remember thinking, ‘I’m not sure this is gonna go my way...’”

We flee the weird associations to a pub not far away, where Foy, who’s been off caffeine for a couple of months, makes do with a long, pained sniff of my coffee and orders a soda water. She landed the main part in The Crown in 2014, and went on to appear in its first two series, winning a Golden Globe last year, and an Emmy this year. By arrangement, Foy and all her co-stars have surrendered their roles (Olivia Colman and others are currently on set as the Windsors, a little older) and this has freed up Foy to turn to movies. She has a couple of huge ones due: a moody, Oscar-y biopic about Neil Armstrong, First Man, in which Foy plays opposite Ryan Gosling as the spaceman’s wife; and then a noisier blockbuster, with Foy shorn and dragon-tattooed as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl In The

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