Woman Crush Wednesday: 5 things you should know about Claire Foy

Our WCW of the week, Claire Foy, is the woman who starred as Queen Elizabeth in the famous TV show The Crown, whose second season is about to be released on Netflix. Thanks to the visibility she earned with this role, she was now chosen to play Lisbeth Salander in The Girl In the Spider’s Web, the film sequel to the Millennium trilogy.  Claire is a mother, too, and here are 5 interesting facts about her! 

1) She auditioned with a baby bump 

Claire said in an interview that she didn’t really take her audition for The Crown too seriously: when her agent called to ask whether she was interested in the role of Elizabeth, Claire was 5 months pregnant, and she had no intention to be part of a 9-month project with a small baby to take care of. However, after a chat with the director, she still accepted to audition for the part, without really thinking she would ever be chosen for the part. “It was pretty odd when I was asked if I wanted the part, because I never really thought I could be what they were looking for”. Claire remembers the first time she tried the costumes on, because with an Elizabethan dress and a crown, and her baby bump, she looked like a “pregnant little girl.”

2) Her relationship with real Elizabeth

As a good reminder of actors being regular people, with the same hopes and fears that we all have, Claire declared in an interview that her greatest fear was for real Queen Elizabeth to watch the show, so much so that she convinced herself that the Queen would be way too busy with royal affairs to have time to do that. She was very worried that the Queen would find her acting “overly dramatic”, despite rumor having it that actress Helen Mirren, who is very close to Queen Elizabeth, had even sent Claire an email, congratulating her on her performance.

3) Acting was never really her plan A

It might seem incredible, considering her recent success on film, but Claire’s main interests were always politics and communication. Claire enjoyed staging small plays at home with her cousins as a little girl, but she never thought she could make a profession out of that. The actress said she fell in love with acting after her parents divorced: she spent so much time on her own at the time that she suddenly started watching lots and lots of movies. This is why she signed up for the Oxford School of Drama, not without a few insecurities: her image of acting school came from the TV show Fame, and she was slightly worried that she would have to spend her time wearing leg-warmers!

4) Her favorite film

The dedication and focus that got producers to choose her to play Queen Elizabeth were most likely also the result of watching Pride and Prejudice over and over: Claire declared she watched it about 4000 times (no kidding!!!) and that she knows the whole film by heart. Who knows, maybe impersonating this other Elizabeth was what charmed her very own Mr. Darcy!

5) Unusual spots

Claire declared that she placed the Golden Globe Award she won in 2017, as “best actress – television series drama” in her bathroom: it’s a reminder for her that despite living many different lives thanks to her work, she will always be the same in that room — when we see our own image reflected in the mirror, all filters and fiction disappear, and that is when we find ourselves again.