I added screencaptures of Claire Foy’s tabloid editor Kate Loy from New Year’s Day’s black comedy Hacks on Channel 4.

GALLERY LINK:
- Hacks (TV, 2012): Pilot

She lit up the screen as Little Dorrit – now Foy is taking on the role of a tabloid editor.

by Alice Jones

For a British actress, tying the ribbons on a period drama bonnet for the first time is an important rite of passage. For Claire Foy, though, the occasion was particularly memorable. In 2008, aged just 24, she landed the lead role in Andrew Davies’ 14-part adaptation of Little Dorrit, having previously appeared only in the pilot of Being Human and in a single episode of Doctors. All of a sudden, she was being directed by her teen idol. “I’ve seen Pride and Prejudice about 4,000 times. I’m not joking: I know every single line. I used to go round to my Aunty Cath’s house and we’d all sit under the duvet and spend all day watching the whole thing. I was obsessed,” she says. “So when I first saw my bonnet, I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

Today, Foy still can’t quite believe her luck. She is endearingly wide-eyed about her chosen profession, even though, at 27, she has a CV to rival actors twice her age. Before she has even sat down, she’s gossiping about the time she auditioned for Ben Stiller. “I went in and thought, ‘Oh my god you’re Ben Stiller!’ It was just the worst audition ever. Needless to say I didn’t get it.”

She flops down on the sofa and unwinds her long woolly scarf. “But it was so nice to meet him.” She is starry-eyed about Hollywood in general, though she already has one blockbuster – Season of the Witch – under her belt. “They closed a ski lodge for us all to stay in on the shoot! Only because we were with Nicolas Cage – they wouldn’t have closed a ski lodge for me. I haven’t been to one since.” She’s now planning to go to LA next year, in pursuit of more film roles. “It’s so warm! And it smells amazing! It smells of oranges and sunshine and attractive people!”

You can see Hollywood falling for this British ingenue in a big way. She has the kind of delicate English rose features and gigantic blue eyes that make directors swoon. (Davies said that he wanted every shot in Little Dorrit to be “a big close-up of Claire and those huge eyes and that wonderful straight gaze…”). Yet when she opens her mouth, she’s surprisingly loud, an unstoppable chatterbox, all estuary over-emphasis and ohmigods.

It’s a combination that has made her hard to typecast so far. She followed up her angelic Amy Dorrit with roles in two further classy television adaptations – of Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch and Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal – and the lead in Peter Kosminsky’s Israeli independence drama, The Promise. Lately, she’s taken a turn for the villainous, playing a plague-spreading sorceress in Season of the Witch and the brattish, fascist-supporting Lady Persie in Upstairs Downstairs. This weekend, as if to confirm her passage to the dark side, she plays the editor of a tabloid newspaper in Hacks, a one-off phone-hacking comedy on Channel 4. “I’ve played quite a lot of horrible people recently,” she says. “I probably need to stop that.”

Written by Guy Jenkin (Outnumbered, Drop the Dead Donkey), Hacks stars Foy as Kate Loy, “a ferociously ambitious newswoman who believes that you should do anything to get a story”. Loy is appointed to the top job by the newspaper’s Australian owner (over the head of his impotent, bespectacled son), celebrates by spending the night with a well-known soap star and when, on her first day at the helm, she’s presented with a pile of files by a journalist, demands, “Why won’t you just hack phones like everyone else?” She’s also, according to Foy, “completely fictional” and wears her dark brown hair in a severe bob rather than, say, wild, red curls. Still, Foy must have looked to recent events for a little inspiration? “No, I deliberately didn’t. It’s not based on fact, it’s a comedy drama. It’s close to the bone but that’s what comedy is.”

Has she experienced any press intrusion? “Not really. I’d be really shocked if that happened.” In fact, fame is a strange source of fascination for her. “It must be weird if you’re a proper star and you just go from amazing place to amazing place, never going anywhere horrible, never having anything slightly cruddy, never having unwashed clothes,” she says, eyes like saucers. “But that’s life. You need stuff like that.”

She went to the Baftas last year but left straight after dinner. “I was eating guinea fowl at midnight thinking, ‘This is really weird. I’m not hungry anymore. I’m really tired. Shall we just go home?’ I watch the Baftas every year and I love it. It’s so glamorous and exciting, then when you actually go… I’d rather watch it at home, if you know what I mean.” Home is Notting Hill – “Swit swoo! I’m very lucky” – where she lives with her partner. She has previously kept his identity a secret but tells me that it’s the actor Stephen Campbell Moore. They met on the set of Season of the Witch.

Foy has just starred in the British indie movie Wreckers, playing Benedict Cumberbatch’s wife. “Filmed on a budget of 2.5p,” she says, cheerfully. “Benedict has a huge female following. They’ll probably come after me now. Start going through my bins…”

Foy never planned to be in front of the camera. Born in Cheshire, she moved to Buckinghamshire when she was six, after her parents divorced. The youngest – and loudest – of three children, her performing career got off to a stuttering start when she fell off the stage while playing Titania in a purple tutu at primary school, and she later had to give up ballet thanks to juvenile arthritis.

She did drama and screen studies at Liverpool John Moores University and toyed with becoming a cinematographer – “until I realised that I didn’t understand what the lights did”. It was only a chance remark from one of her lecturers, about acting, that set her on a different path.

“I was a bit confused. I loved film so much but it didn’t occur to me to be an actress or go to drama school.” She applied to Lamda but didn’t get in and instead enrolled on a one-year course at the Oxford School of Drama. A year later, she was tying her bonnet on the set of Little Dorrit.

She’s now filming another period drama – the second series of Upstairs Downstairs. Foy plays Lady Persie, the petulant sister of the lady of the house (played by Keeley Hawes; the two look spookily similar), who becomes embroiled first with the family chauffeur, and then with fascism. “I get to play a complete loony,” says Foy, with relish. “People hate her but I think she’s amazing. I love her. I’d quite like to be her friend – discounting the fascist bit, obviously. There’s no excusing being a fascist, but if I’ve got to play her, I can’t say ‘I’m not going to do that because people won’t like her.’”

‘Hacks‘ is on on 1 January at 10pm on Channel 4 ; ‘Upstairs Downstairs‘ returns to the BBC early next year

Actually not all that much, so why not insert a nice topical joke about that fancy dress swastika scandal… from seven years ago.

Channel 4 have released a clip from their new phone hacking satire show Hacks, based on the recent controversy surrounding the News of the World phone hacking scandal. The show is set in the offices of tabloid magazine The Sunday Comet and features a cast including Claire Foy, Nigel Planer, Phil Davis, Alexander Armstrong, Gordon Kennedy, Russ Abbott and Celia Imrie.

Hacks airs on New Years Day at 10pm on Channel 4.

Watch it HERE.

GALLERY LINK:
- Hacks (TV, 2012): Trailer

In an explosive finale to Dazed & Confused’s 20th Anniversary season, magazine co-founder Rankin has photographed a series of 20 covers for the December issue, featuring new portraits of 20 iconic cover stars from Dazed’s past including Kate Moss, Tilda Swinton, Alicia Keys and Jarvis Cocker. Each unique cover has a gatefold pull out, which features 20 rising stars chosen by each celebrity, resulting in a groundbreaking portrait of pop culture heroes of the future. Claire Foy was PJ Harvey’s choice.

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: Dazed & Confused (UK) – December 2011, thanks to Lorna

GALLERY LINK:
- Events: UK Premiere of “Wreckers”

Claire Foy, luminous throughout. … As Dawn Claire Foy is highly personable giving a very natural performance which grounds the film. We share in her confusion at the events that surround her and she keeps the audience on side even when making some truly terrible decisions. … Wreckers is a haunting, compelling tale of secrets and lies, anchored by superb performances from it’s central trio of rising British stars.

The movie is also short-listed for an award at the festival: Director D.R. Hood for ‘Best British Newcomer’ (source). The movie is scheduled for a theatrical release in the UK mid December and it will be made available on Curzon on Demand service shortly afterwards.

It’s been more than overdue – but I finally added screencaptures of Claire Foy in the ‘Little Dorrit‘ DVD Extras.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Little Dorrit (TV, 2008): DVD Featurette > An Insight
- Little Dorrit (TV, 2008): DVD Featurette > Picture Gallery

Finished adding screencaptures of feisty Adora Belle Dearheart in the second episode of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Going Postal‘. What fun it is to watch Claire Foy in this role. Enjoy!

GALLERY LINK:
- Going Postal (TV, 2010): Episode 02

Finally ‘Wreckers‘ will have its world premiere! It’s part of the lineup of the 55th BFI London Film Festival in the section “New British Cinema”. It will be screened on the following dates:

Visit the film’s page on the official Festival website to see more details.

GALLERY:
- Wreckers (2011): Production Stills

I added screencaptures of all the ‘Going Postal‘ Blu-ray extras featuring Claire Foy. Most of them are only DVD quality however. I deleted the previous captures from the website featurettes because they all had huge SKY tags on them and were now included in the Blu-ray Extras.

GALLERY LINK:
- Going Postal (TV, 2010): Blu-ray Featurette > Blooper Reel
- Going Postal (TV, 2010): DVD Featurette > Interview Claire Foy
- Going Postal (TV, 2010): DVD Featurette > Interview Make-Up
- Going Postal (TV, 2010): DVD Featurette > Interview The Fans

Continuing to add missing high quality screencaptures of Claire Foy in her projects I bring you today pictures of feisty Adora Belle Dearheart in the first of two episodes of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Going Postal‘. Enjoy!

GALLERY LINK:
- Going Postal (TV, 2010): Episode 01

As promised, here the screencaptures of Claire Foy as Erin Matthews in the fourth and final episode of ‘The Promise‘. After Paul comes and gets Erin when she’s stuck in Hebron they continue the search for her grandad’s servant and or his family. However, they learn that he moved to Gaza. Paul being unwilling to take her into the warzone Erin asks Omar. When he realizes she plans to return a precious house key to Mohammed he finally agrees to take her. Ending up by herself with relatives of Mohammed Erin faces danger as Israeli soldiers are raiding the house because the family’s daughter was a suicide bomber.

GALLERY LINK:
- The Promise (TV, 2011): Episode 04

I finally added Blu-ray screencaptures of Claire Foy as Erin Matthews in the third part of the gripping drama ‘The Promise‘. This episode doesn’t feature as much footage of Erin but even so her journey gets more exciting. She goes to see Omar at his home by herself and invites him inside Eliza’s home, which leads to trouble and another epileptic fit. Through the diary Erin finds out how her granddad also suffered from those. After connecting with Paul things go further than planned and Erin takes off by herself to occupied Hebron and into the city’s closed off ‘sterile zone’ which of course again leads to trouble. Expect screencaptures from the final and even more tumultuous final episode later this week – enjoy!

GALLERY LINK:
- The Promise (TV, 2011): Episode 03

The veteran actress conceived the idea for the original show – which ran from 1971-1975 – along with its star Jean Marsh, but did not appear until the series’ 2010 revival in which she played Lady Holland.

However according to the BBC News website Dame Eileen has opted out of the next series amid reports she is “unhappy” with the direction the scripts are taking.

“It’s with much sadness that we say goodbye to her wonderful character, the straight speaking mother-in-law Lady Holland,” a BBC statement said.

“However we respect her decision and will be announcing new star casting soon.”

The next six episodes of the show – which follows life above and below stairs in the home of a wealthy diplomat’s family – are due to begin filming in October, and will be broadcast in 2012, following the show’s successful revival last Christmas.

Co-creator Jean Marsh is the only cast member to have appeared in both the original and the 2010 version, which also featured Ed Stoppard, Claire Foy and Keeley Hawes.

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