FILM | INTERVIEW

Claire Foy: why I got into bed with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal

The actress talks to Ed Potton about her intimate scenes in All of Us Strangers and battles over pay in The Crown

Claire Foy: “I admire people who only ever want to be leads but … it’s exhausting”
Claire Foy: “I admire people who only ever want to be leads but … it’s exhausting”
AUSTIN HARGRAVE FOR THE TIMES
Ed Potton
The Times

Claire Foy opens the door of her flat in a chic corner of north London and leads me upstairs to the swish top-floor kitchen, with its Ikea cardboard star and views over a rainy park. She pads off to the kitchen island and presents me with a mug of Yorkshire Tea and a slice of excellent Christmas cake baked by her former mother-in-law. Poppy, her chocolate labradoodle, trots in. “Come on, then!” Foy says. The dog jumps up and settles into her lap. “Good girl.”

Foy, 39, has built her considerable reputation on playing queens — Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall, for which she was nominated for a Bafta, and the first and best incarnation of Elizabeth II in The Crown, for which