WE’RE not going to be able to avoid Claire Foy this month, which is a very good thing. The 27-year-old English actor, recently chosen by PJ Harvey as her rising star of 2012, is on our screens in two flagship BBC series. In one she is very nasty, and in the other she is very nice. Well, very normal anyway.

The first is Upstairs Downstairs, in which Foy has already appeared as Lady Persie, the bonkers, fascist, Nazi-sympathising bad egg of the “upstairs” lot. The second is Paula Milne’s new drama White Heat, an ambitious saga spanning four decades in Britain that promises to do for its young, hip cast what Our Friends In The North did for Daniel Craig, Christopher Eccleston, Mark Strong and Gina McKee. This time Foy plays Charlotte, a red-haired, hot-blooded, middle-class feminist who pitches up at a north London student house in the 1960s.

“She is relatively normal, which is unusual for me,” says Foy. “A lot of the characters I’ve played are a certain way, at a certain moment. Charlotte is just a middle class girl going through life. She has a similar background to me and is even from the same area of Buckinghamshire. It’s terrifying playing someone who is very close to you. You can’t really do anything to prepare. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I’m really proud of it. I think it’s amazing. And I loved playing her. She is this normal, contradictory girl with the most massive balls.”

This is a typical Foy response: self-deprecating, a bit stunned, and teetering on the brink of hysteria. Interviewing her is a bit like running around after a puppy on its first walk. She is trying to take it all in her stride, she says, it’s just that it’s so exciting. “I don’t think you can keep walking around being in awe of what you’re doing the whole time,” she says, sounding like she’s lecturing herself. “You can’t constantly and forever be going, ‘Oh my god! That’s Nicolas Cage! Amazing!’ You just have to get on and do it.”

So what was it like working with Cage? Foy ended up starring opposite him in last year’s Season Of The Witch, her first foray into Hollywood. “Amazing,” she says. “He walked up to me. It was so bizarre. I’d just had my hair extensions put in and he came over and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing this movie’.” She laughs at this apparent absurdity. Oh, and she does a mean Cage impression.

It’s all a far cry from Foy’s first major role as Little Dorrit in Andrew Davies’ BBC adaptation of the Dickens novel. Foy won the part of one of the sweetest heroines in literature not long after leaving drama school. Davies said of her at the time that he wanted every shot to be “a big close-up of… those huge eyes and that wonderful straight gaze”. It’s part of Foy’s magnetism: one moment she can look like the quintessential English rose, all pallid skin and round, tearful eyes, and the next she is more odd, difficult and interesting.

“I’m not the most beautiful girl in the world and I’m happy with that,” she says. “It means I don’t go up for those two-dimensional roles where it actually says in the script ‘Someone blonde, leggy, and beautiful walks into the room’. There are a lot of parts like that where basically all that’s required of the woman is to look amazing. I’m not going to be cast in them. I’m thankful for that. I only want to take parts that convince me.”

So far, they have convinced everyone else as well. Vogue put Foy at the top of their annual list of the 40 hottest people for Little Dorrit. Screen International listed her as one to watch. Last year she starred in The Promise, Peter Kosminsky’s drama about a young woman investigating her grandfather’s role in 1940s Palestine. She has also starred in The Night Watch (also written by Paula Milne), opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in Wreckers, and as a vicious tabloid editor in Channel 4’s comedy Hacks. “I soon became a complete bastard after Little Dorrit,” she jokes. “I’m so lucky to have played someone that nice because the majority of parts aren’t like that. It’s a lovely thing because it means people presume I am actually really nice. And then they meet me and realise I’m a horror.”

The generational span of White Heat required Foy to play the same character from 1965 to the present. “I have to play 18 and upwards,” she says. “I do look quite young, which is fortunate, but I am going for older parts now. I don’t think I can get away with playing someone ten years younger any more. Mind you, I’ll go where the work is to be honest.”

Charlotte is one of a group of student housemates drawn together by virtue of being outsiders. There is a gay man, a black man, an Irish Catholic, an artist, and so on. “Charlotte is very politically aware, as the youth then were,” she says. “I had to get my head round the women’s movement and how radical it was for someone like her to go to university at all. I spoke to my mum, who was the first in her family to go to university, and it was such a massive thing. I take all of this for granted. I can go where I want, do what I want. I’m not blocked by my sex.”

Does she consider herself a feminist? “Yes, I think so,” she says. “I stand up for myself. I’m one of those people who like shouting about things. But I’m not particularly well-versed in it.”

Foy was born in Stockport, Greater Manchester, but grew up in Buckinghamshire. Her father was a salesman, and her mother brought up her and her older brother and sister. Her parents divorced when she was eight.

Foy never considered acting as an option, though she was obsessed with films. “I just loved Doris Day and Vivien Leigh,” she says. “I was in all my school plays but all my friends who wanted to be actresses were incredibly tall and beautiful and actually good at it. I wasn’t particularly.” Is she just being modest? “No,” she insists. “But at primary school I was more like that. Pretty bloody attention seeking. Very loud, hyperactive and excitable. I had so much energy. My brother and sister hated me. All I ever wanted to do was perform.”

By the time she was a teenager, she was clearly getting serious about acting, even if she won’t admit to it. She studied drama and film studies at Liverpool John Moores University and then did a year at the Oxford School of Drama. Not long after came Little Dorrit.

“I wanted to go up for Tatty Corum [a role that went to Freema Agyeman] because she was a very moody, angry character,” says Foy. “I was so flustered at my final audition, I couldn’t believe it when they called to say I’d got Amy Dorrit. I haven’t known panic like it since. It’s the abject fear of getting your dream job.”

Foy isn’t panicking any more, but she still seems blown away by what’s happened. And she is cynical about the hype that surrounds her. “I couldn’t believe PJ Harvey even knew who I was,” she says. “I was convinced she had been told to choose me. But it’s lovely. I just hope I don’t let her down.”

And what about being the next big thing? Foy laughs. “None of that has anything to do with me,” she says. “That’s what this industry is like. It’s a game. None of it is real and you can’t take it too seriously. But, still, you know, it’s amazing.”

• White Heat begins on Thursday at 9pm on BBC2. Upstairs Downstairs, tonight, BBC1, 9pm

from The Stage / by Matthew Hemley

With both Upstairs Downstairs and White Heat being screened on the BBC this month, Claire Foy talks to Matthew Hemley about feeling surprisingly comfortable in front of the camera

Claire Foy has been busy filming that much for television in recent months, she needs a reminder about which show it is I’m referring to when I mention I’ve seen the first two episodes of her latest drama.

“Is that White Heat?,” she asks.

Yes, I respond. Although, to be fair, it could easily have been Upstairs Downstairs, which also stars Foy and which is also being broadcast by the BBC this month. Indeed, since taking the title role in the BBC’s adaptation of Little Dorrit back in 2008, Foy has rarely been off our screens.

She appeared in Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal for Sky, took the lead in Peter Kosminsky’s The Promise for Channel 4, joined the cast for the BBC’s adaptation of The Night Watch, and has recently tackled comedy with Hacks. In between, she has also found time to star alongside Nicolas Cage in the Hollywood film Season of the Witch and is now back on the BBC with a second series of Upstairs Downstairs and White Heat.

The latter is a six-part drama series by Paula Milne (who also adapted The Night Watch for the BBC) and is about the lives of seven characters, with the series spanning the 1960s through to present day. The seven characters first meet as young students who live as flat mates in London’s Tufnell Park. The series then follows them over four decades as their lives are shaped by the political events of each era – including the death of Churchill and the ascendancy of Thatcher, up to the present day.

In the series, Foy plays Charlotte, who is described as an “intelligent feminist”. However, Foy was initially called in to audition for another part.

“They wanted me to go up for another role, but I said, I think I like Charlotte,” she reveals, adding with a laugh: “That sounds bad because she is the main part, but ignore that.”

Charlotte, she says, is the “most normal” person she has played. In the series, Foy has to portray her up to the age of 40, which she says required “ageing up” (she is 27).

“At first we were all like, crikey, we have to play 40-year-olds,” she says. “But it’s not really that much of a leap. People who are 40 don’t walk with Zimmer frames. No one at the age of 40 feels like a 100-year-old. They feel just like they did when they were 18. That was interesting.”

While Foy and her co-stars play their roles up to the age of 40, each character also has an even older version of themselves in the series.

Foy’s is played by Juliet Stevenson.

“They had a hard job, because they came in and played a role we had already done,” Foy explains. “But Juliet watched what we had shot, and we could have talked about the character had we needed to. But there was no need to do that and, in a way, I hope it works for that reason.”

For her own part, Foy was meticulous about combing Milne’s script for clues about her character. This way of working, she says, is absolutely vital to her. When she was a student at the Oxford School of Drama, a director called Richard Beecham told her that an actor has to use the clues that are in a script.

“And you do,” Foy says. “If you don’t, you’re amazing, and I think it’s so brave not to. The script is the only place I get inspiration from. I am not very good at picking a character out of the blue and deciding if they have a limp or something. I am not good at that. I work better when I have got the stuff in front of you and you have to get your head around it.”

She adds: “Writers want to see you playing the character rather than doing an impersonation of it. So you really need to find something you identify with or understand. It’s important to make the effort to be the person a writer has written.”

So what did Foy learn from the script about Charlotte?

The actress says she had to “delve quite a lot” into Milne’s script, and discovered from this research that Charlotte is “politically aware” but a “calm, closed person”.

“The hint in the script for me was that she is the person who never depends on other people or goes to them with problems,” she explains. “Only when she is in dire straits will she ask for help. At the same time, for certain people, she is there for them all the time. She is very giving towards people she loves.”

Foy reveals that Milne’s story is semi-autobiographical, and that the writer lived through everything she has written about. Because the series spans decades, Foy acknowledges there may well be comparisons between it and Our Friends in the North. But she adds that there are “massive differences” between the two and that it would be “awful to be compared and contrasted”.

Even if White Heat and Our Friends in the North aren’t compared, however, then two shows that always will be compared are Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. Foy plays Lady Persephone Towyn in the former, which is back for a second outing this month, written by Heidi Thomas. All of which means TV viewers will be seeing a lot of her on the BBC this month.

Which is interesting given that Foy did not think she would have a career on screen when she first started studying drama at the Oxford School of Drama. They did do a lot of work training to appear on camera, but Foy says she was bad at this.

“And I was told I was awful,” she laughs. “It was the most shameful thing in the whole world. So I thought I am not going to have a movie career. However, when I left, most of the work came from TV really.”

Her first stint on television was for the pilot of Being Human, before landing an episode of Doctors and then the lead in Little Dorrit.

“On that, I worked with incredible directors and actors and it was like going back to school in a way. I can’t believe I had the confidence to do it,” she says. “Looking back I don’t know where it came from.”

Although obviously proud of her work on Little Dorrit, Foy says it is her work on the four-part series The Promise for Channel 4 that she is particularly pleased with. She calls this show, about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, a “beautiful piece of drama” and adds that she hopes producers try and make more television like that in the future.

For now though, she admits she has nothing planned work wise. Just what she calls “a period of blackness”.

But she is keen to try her hand at something different in the future – theatre, perhaps – and expresses a desire to sing and dance in something.

“Not at the same time however,” she says, laughing. “A play with songs would be fine to begin with.”

• White Heat begins on BBC2 on March 8 at 9pm

Last November we posted a scan from the 20th Anniversary December issue of Dazed & Confused. But there was also a video with an interview and a look behind the scenes of the photoshoot. Also Claire Foy was interviewed during the London Film Festival at the premiere of her movie ‘Wreckers‘ back in October. I also added some old ‘Little Dorrit‘ interviews.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Interviews/News Segments: London Film Festival | Wreckers | Premiere
- Photoshoots: Dazed & Confused – Behind the Scenes (2011)

VIDEO LINKS:
- Events: Premieres
- Interviews: Online Segments
- Miscellanous: Photoshoots

Her luminous good looks made her the star of Little Dorrit and Upstairs Downstairs. As she prepares to light up our TV screens once again, Claire Foy talks to Gerard Gilbert.

Claire Foy is running late for her interview in the first-floor private dining room of a north London pub, finally phoning to say: “I’m downstairs”. “And I’m upstairs,” I reply, which is all very droll because Foy is of course one of the stars of Upstairs Downstairs, BBC1′s reconstituted version of the Seventies ITV classic about toffs and servants. Except that today the toffs are downstairs, or rather the cast of ‘scripted reality’ show Made in Chelsea are shooting an advert for the fashion chain River Island. “How exciting,” says Foy when she puts her head round the door. “It’s Made in Chelsea downstairs… I can’t believe it.”

What chance the cast of Made in Chelsea returning the compliment: “It’s Claire Foy upstairs… we can’t believe it”? Have they even heard of her? The difference is that while the solipsistic Sloanes are chasing fame for its own sake, celebrity is a by-product of Foy’s job. She is, however, the real class act in this building, a fact momentarily disguised by her munching a Danish pastry from a paper bag. “Breakfast,” she says between bites. “I’m lucky I have a fast metabolism… my whole family does… everyone’s got a lot of nervous energy so we burn it off.”

I’ll say. Foy is high-spirited, chatty and, I discover when transcribing my recording of our conversation, tends not to finish one sentence before embarking on a fresh one. She is, you might say, the mistress of the… And this might be more frustrating if the conversational cascade was not rounded off with a pleasantly earthy, self-deprecating laugh. She seems genuinely bemused by the fact that she has won several of the most covetable television parts of recent years, from the title role in BBC1′s Dickens adaptation, Little Dorrit, to playing Erin – the young woman investigating her grandfather’s role during the British mandate in 1940s Palestine – in Peter Kosminsky’s acclaimed Channel 4 drama The Promise. Journalists have even started calling her the “next Keira” and the “next Sienna”.

“I’m not being funny but I’m never going to be Keira Knightley,” she says in a matter-of-fact way that suggests realism rather than false-modesty. “It’s that thing of going (putting on a moronic voice) ‘the next… the next…’. I hate the idea of being touted as something that I have never tried to make myself be. I mean, I might not do anything… I might finish doing Upstairs Downstairs and just drop off the face of the planet.”

Before that unlikely event, and for the next two months, Foy will be prominent on our television screens in contrasting roles – as the fascist supporting Lady Persephone Towyn in Upstairs Downstairs, and then as Charlotte, a middle-class feminist in mid-Sixties London in the Paula Milne’s generational saga White Heat. In the first series of Upstairs Downstairs, which was set in 1936 and had the misfortune of launching in the wake of the Downton Abbey juggernaut, ‘Lady Persie’, the black-shirt, black sheep of the family, had an affair with the Mosleyite family chauffeur (shades here of Downton‘s Lady Sybil, who ran off with the Granthams’ driver). Lady Persie then turned her sights on the German ambassador to London (the real one at the time, but he’s not going to sue), Joachim von Ribbentrop. In other words, she is the Unity Mitford – the Hitler-loving Mitford sister – of the piece, and in the new series living in Nazi Germany.

“It would be interesting to see Lady Persie and Adolf Hitler around a table together,” muses Foy. “Probably she’d call him a stupid name and laugh and he’d probably quite like her.” Never mind Hitler, does Foy like Lady Persie? “You have to like every character that you play because if you don’t understand them then, you know…” she says. “Yes she stands for awful things, but when you read Unity Mitford’s diaries you realise she isn’t really conscious… they come from this privileged background where they were brought up in the country and their mum and dad were completely bonkers and they just say what they think. She doesn’t give a shit about what anybody else thinks.” But wasn’t that just the prerogative of privilege? “I am always so envious of people who do whatever they want. Obviously she’s not a very nice person, but I still think she’s hilarious.”

The snobbish Mitfords would probably categorise Foy as ‘non-U’. Born in 1984 in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in Stepping Hill hospital, scene of the recent spate of suspicious saline-drip deaths, she is the youngest of three siblings and part of a large, extended Irish (on her mother’s side) family. She moved south to Buckinghamshire with her father’s job (he was a salesman for Rank Xerox) and an averagely happy sort of childhood was only slightly discomfited, at the age of eight, by her parents’ divorce.

“As divorces go, on a scale of one to 10? I don’t remember a thing – so, 10, amazing,” she says. “My sister was five years older, so she got a lot of the… and my brother is my brother so he didn’t pay much attention either, bless him. But I didn’t really know what was going on. Or maybe I just chose not to remember, but mum and dad didn’t shout at each other or anything so… And we moved to another house in the same village so we didn’t have to change school or anything”.

Claire was the least academic of the three children, but her mother’s persistence with the schools’ appeal system finally got her into the same grammar school as her older siblings, and she mustered enough A-level grades to secure a place at Liverpool John Moores University to do a joint-honours degree in drama and ‘screen studies’, with a vague idea of becoming a cinematographer – “not realising that you have to have an interest in lighting people,” she laughs. “You should see the video of this children’s TV programme we made at university. It was shockingly lit.”

Foy was the only graduate from her course to actually go on and study acting – a year’s course at the Oxford School of Drama. “I wouldn’t have been able to go to drama school when I was 19,” she says. “I don’t think I was even conscious of life… I was like a zombie. But when I finished uni’ I just realised… just go and do it, stop being a knob.”

What she could not have foreseen was the speed with which she would “go and do it”. An obligatory episode of the BBC1 daytime soap Doctors and the pilot of BBC3′s supernatural drama Being Human under her belt, Foy was plucked, as they say, from obscurity to play the title role in BBC1′s 16-part adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit. “It was a bit of a shock… yeah, it was very weird,” she recalls. “I remember the first audition where I was sat with a load of ginger girls, and everyone was ginger apart from me. Rachel Frett, the casting director, was really plugging for me – I don’t know why. I must have looked right because I was not doing it right. Then the BBC do like launching people, they do like finding people who haven’t done anything before, and Andrew Davies likes doing that because then people think you are that character.”

Actually, Davies has 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,” and indeed the enduring image of the series was not Andy Serkis’s bravura malevolence as Rigaud, or Tom Courtenay’s shambling brilliance as Mr Dorrit, but Foy’s delicate and very still, pellucid white face and big blue eyes staring out from beneath her bonnet – more Irish moss than English rose, and the very picture of innocence. It gets me to thinking about an often overlooked aspect of an actor’s fortune, one that cannot be taught or learnt, of how the camera responds to their particular assemblage of cheekbones, eye-colour and skin-tone. And when Eva, our photographer, says “I was really excited to shoot you – you’ve got such an amazing face,” Foy seems embarrassed. Is it difficult to accept that a significant part of your fortune is something you have no control over?

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to say when people say stuff like that… it’s just my face, I’m quite lucky to have a face…” In fact, Foy doesn’t mean this facetiously, because at the age of 17 she developed a growth – a benign tumour – in one eye. “I was like a Cyclops and it was all a bit scary,” she says, “and I was on steroids for about a year and a half afterwards that makes you put on a lot of weight and have really bad skin. It’s quite good when you have something like that, because the amount of time you’ve got to look in a mirror when you’re working… the amount of time people talk about your face… It’s quite good to have some sort of perspective, because it’s just a face.”

And of Little Dorrit, and the camera’s absorption in her visage, she says: “It actually set me up quite well because the director, Dearbhla [Walsh], said to me, ‘Your face is powerful enough to communicate stuff, so just trust that you don’t have to…’ you know. And less really is more.”

Less really was more – less screen time, more money – in Foy’s follow-up project, starring opposite Nicolas Cage in the Hollywood fantasy Season of the Witch. “A really bizarre experience,” she says. “Amazing but ludicrous… how much money they spend and the places where we were staying. And there’s so much free time. I had been doing something that had 16 scripts where I was in every other scene; this was one single script that was about 90 pages long and I was in about six scenes.”

Foy liked Cage. “I think he’s a real actor, which I was surprised at… not surprised but shocked. Not shocked but he really acts,” – this last sentence being pure Foy in its skittish circularity. “He’d ask me questions like, ‘What do you do in your life?’ and I’d say, ‘Well, go to the shops…’. People who are in that position don’t really do that sort of thing anymore!”

Does Foy get recognised in shops? “It depends whether I’ve been on the telly the night before. The Promise was the thing that got most people stopping.” Peter Kosminsky’s drama, in which Foy played a stroppy 18-year-old, Erin, experiencing a political and historical consciousness-raising gap-year in Israel, showed that she could do more than look beatific beneath a bonnet. The Night Watch, an adaptation of Sarah Waters’s Sapphic love story unfolding against the backdrop of the Blitz, saw her playing Anna Maxwell Martin’s girlfriend, while she appeared opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in a low-budget movie, Wreckers (“He’s a complete geek… he’s got more brain power than I will ever have so it just makes it so difficult to have a conversation with him”). And in a complete change of style and pace, she was the tabloid editor whose resemblance to Rebekah Brooks was entirely coincidental, in Channel 4′s spoof of the phone-tapping scandal, Hacks. “I should play someone normal,” she says.

White Heat, Paula Milne’s new saga following a group of student housemates from 1965 London to the present day (it’s already been dubbed Our Friends in the South) sees Foy returning to the more watchful ways of Amy Dorrit. Her Charlotte is a fledgling feminist, putting ‘This Ad Degrades Women’ stickers on London Underground posters, and falling into bed with her radicalised landlord (played by Sam Claflin). “If I never had to do [a sex scene] again that would be the best thing in the world because no one in their right mind would enjoy that,” she says. “You’re worried about what the crew are thinking, whether they’re really uncomfortable, whether you’re uncomfortable. You’re just thinking, God, let this be over.

“The Nightwatch was the first thing I had ever done like that and I remember thinking at the time, ‘When it’s on the telly I’m going to die’ and actually I really didn’t care. Because I’d done the worst bit of it… it’s not like every time you see somebody, people are going to think they’ve seen you naked. You forget it, you just forget it.”

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to her boyfriend, actor Stephen Campbell Moore, who made his name with The History Boys and who met Foy while working together on Season of the Witch. They share a flat in Notting Hill, and Foy is horrified when I jokingly describe them as the latest celebrity couple, British TV’s very own Brangelina. “A celebrity couple, Jesus Christ. I saw someone recently who I went to school with who was saying something like that and I nearly punched her.

“We did a job together – a pilot for a medical drama called Pulse that was on BBC4. It was quite funny because everyone knew we were together and [were] like, ‘You’re actually going out, aren’t you?’.”

“I don’t think I could ever do a play with him, however, because it’s too much. You’re in a room and you’re constantly being taken apart, and told to do this again and again. You don’t really want the person you’re with see you being told ‘You’re shit’ all day and every day. Anyway, he’s a brilliant actor, so I’d be lucky to be in anything that he’s in, to be honest.”

She may be being honest, but that last statement is baloney. Foy has already proved that she can carry a variety of ambitious projects, and being the sort of person that she is – cheerful and grounded – she must be very easy to work with. This month she’s taking her mother on holiday to New York, and is then doing the rounds with her newly acquired American agent.

Martin Scorsese and Mark Rylance are mentioned as directors she’d like to act for. “I’d like to work with directors who really make you work hard,”she says. “I’d like to be given a responsibility and have to live up to it. I don’t want to do anything easy because I’ve got the rest of my life to do that. Before I have kids and stuff I might as well get all the horrible, you know, self-involved stuff out of the way.” An actor with a horror of self-involvement? Now there’s a thing.

‘Upstairs Downstairs‘ returns to BBC1 tomorrow; ‘White Heat‘ begins on BBC2 in early March

Source

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

You’ve had roles in things from Little Dorrit to Upstairs Downstairs and now The Night Watch – so do you like period dramas?
Claire Foy: I like any drama that pays me to be in it! Period or otherwise! Why are people so obsessed with this I find it very funny? But yes I have done quite a few period pieces. Really I like anything that’s got a good character and a story. They do so many adaptations and remakes and are always finding literature and turning it into dramas so as long as they’re doing that hopefully I’ll do lots and lots and lots, but mix it up with some modern things as well.

Do you get offered as much modern stuff or is it just that a lot of drama is period?
Claire: Well, yes a lot of it is period and people forget that – even if it’s five years ago it’s period because it’s not now. I think because so much television is kind of period of some sort – apart from EastEnders and those things which are set now – it’s probably be a large proportion. I never get offered anything but the scripts that I read are probably more period but I can’t say for sure. It’s hard for me to say because I just like the story, so everything’s just a story to me.

Can you tell us a bit about Helen, the character you play in The Night Watch?
Claire: Helen is a very sweet and lovely person, but she’s very vulnerable and confused and a bit lost and doesn’t really know her place in the world. She makes lots of bad decisions without knowing it. She wants to do the right thing all the time, but is very concerned with what people think, with what society thinks and what’s the right thing to do – even if she doesn’t know what it is. She’s quite needy. She’s the person in a relationship that just gives and gives and gives. She wants love but doesn’t really know what to do when she gets it. It’s why her and Kay’s relationship goes so wrong. She’s a bit tragic really.

Did that make her a difficult to play?
Claire: Yes. It’s quite difficult to play someone who’s so emotionally erratic. She’ll say the first thing that comes into her head. You know when you’re in a relationship and you’re feeling a bit jealous, the adult part of your brain tells you not to ask where the other person was. Well, Helen just goes: “Where were you, what have you being doing? Please tell me, please? And tell me you love me, tell me you love me.”

And it was painful to read and especially when you read the book and you hear her in a monologue and she doesn’t want to do it but she can’t help herself. It’s because she’s so insecure. She has no confidence whereas Kay and Julia are such strong people and Helen holds onto them in order to live her life. It was difficult to play but I did like playing this character who was so desperate as it was quite easy to be the person who said everything first. I loved playing her in fact.

It’s quite rare to get a drama like this where there are so many strong female roles and an opportunity for you to work with lots of your peers – how was that?
Claire: It was amazing and there aren’t any really and if there are there’s always other people involved. It was quite nice that in this they were all female and that they were all relationships with women. It’s a strong female-led cast and the parts have got so much behind them and that is rare. I’ve never really worked with so many women before as actresses. It was a real, real pleasure and an amazing story. It was special really, really special.

Did you feel any special responsibility playing a gay character in a novel that is so sacred to a lot of gay women?
Claire: There’s always a sense of responsibility when you’re doing any adaptation from a book. Some people are of the view that you shouldn’t read the book that you’ve got to work on the script as otherwise you get too confused and you end up acting the book. And the book is not the script, as the script is a drama in its own right. So sometimes when that’s the case you wonder if you should read the book or will that just muddy the waters? But I read the book and I do love doing stuff that has a book behind it as it makes my job a lot easier and I feel a lot more assured about my performance knowing I know what the character’s thinking. So you have that responsibility anyway.

I felt more responsibility as my character is different in the book – she’s quite a lot younger as she’s written in the script to be 26 at the end whereas in the book she’s 26 at the start, so I hope people are not pissed off about that. My main thought when I approached it was I want it to be believable I didn’t want people to think: “There is someone playing a lesbian.” But I don’t think any one could ever think that and the reason it works is because it’s about relationships and all you do is act with the people who are opposite you whatever their sex. Helen’s a funny one as she doesn’t see herself as a lesbian, whereas Kay and Julia do and talk about it openly. Helen would never refer to herself as gay as she doesn’t know what it is. And that’s what I loved about her character as she didn’t need to put a name to herself. She’s in love with the person not the sex that they are. Hopefully, people will be open-minded that it’s heterosexual women playing these parts and that they’ll be ok with that and not judge anyone. But people are nice.

You do have some intimate scenes with Anna and she’s said it was much easier doing them with a woman than a man – how was it for you?
Claire: Ah it was brilliant. And it really, really, really was so much easier. If you’re doing a sex scene with a man – not that I’ve really had any – or even a kissing scene it’s so much nicer. It was just so lovely and not awkward and they’re so pretty and smell nice! We’d just have chats, and we’d have to snog each other, then we’d have another chat. It did get to the point where you could say don’t do that or do this – so you could be really honest with each other. I’ve been very lucky with the men I’ve had to kiss on screen and I’ve got on really well with them but there’s always part of you’d that would rather not do it and finds it awkward. It’s so much easier for your partner too if they’re watching it. With a woman it does make you less self-conscious. Me and Anna Wilson Jones had a whole scene in a bath and we stayed in the bath the whole time between takes. It was so cold out of the bath that it was better to stay in it but if I’d been in the bath with a man I’d have been getting out all the time between takes.

Were you surprised at landing Little Dorrit almost straight out of drama school and do you ever have to pinch yourself at how much you’ve done?
Claire: Yes, but it’s funny because like everything you do become so complacent. When I first did Little Dorritt I do think I went into shock because it was such a big part and such a lot of episodes – it was really scary. I did go into shock for about three months but since then I thought you can’t think ahead you’ve got to take every day at a time. And with the job that I do you’ve got to be confident. As soon as you worry about lots of people watching then it all falls apart.

The Night Watch is on BBC2 on Tuesday, 12 July at 9pm

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I’m very happy to finally be able to offer you guys and girls, and add to our gallery, a scan from Elle UK, which was — to my best knowledge — one of the two big magazines to feature Miss Claire Foy, back in 2008, that we were missing (the other one is Vogue UK). The photo used in the article is part of the Daily Mail set, but it’s a previously unseen one. Enjoy!

GALLERY LINKS:
- Photoshoots: Daily Mail (2008)
- Scans from 2008: Elle (UK) – December 2008

She plays Erin, an 18-year-old visiting Israel for the first time. She’s following in the footsteps of her grandfather Len, a soldier in the British army in Palestine during the Mandate period who kept a diary of his turbulent time there.

It’s a powerful tale of love, war and betrayal, telling the stories of both Erin and Len – two young people caught up in the same struggle more than 60 years apart.

Here, Foy reveals her passion for the project, and explains why she’d like to burn every costume she’s ever worn.

What was it that drew you to The Promise?
I remember the very first audition very clearly. I got sent 25 scenes, and was asked to prepare all of them, which is what Peter does, God love him. It was so much work.

I remember reading a scene, and I had no idea what it was about. But then when I got the finished script, I couldn’t stop reading it. It was just the most amazing story.

Peter is just so talented, it’s unbelievable. Anyone who watches it will be blown away by the story. He somehow makes a political piece that’s so emotionally driven by the characters. There’s no agenda in it. It’s just amazing, it’s my favourite job ever, and I think it always will be.

That’s quite a statement.
It’s the whole reason I want to act. Obviously I couldn’t do a job like this every week – it’s such undertaking and it requires a lot. But I loved it; it’s about something bigger than just the drama. And I loved the character so much. There was so much in her.

She’s not exactly a sympathetic character, is she?
No, she’s not very nice at all. [Laughs] She’s quite unforgiving and a bit bolshy, a bit sarky, and a bit of a cow, really. But I think it works because she’s a real person. And I felt very strongly that when I was 18 I was a lot like Erin. I was quite mouthy, and sticking up for things I didn’t really believe in because I didn’t know anything about the world. She’s a difficult character to love, but she’s real.

Erin suffers from epilepsy as well. Did you do any specific research into that subject?
Yes. I had to. I had to have a few fits on film, so I had to be quite technically specific about them, because some of the people watching will be epileptic, and there’s a duty to get it right.

We had some people from the Epilepsy Foundation come in and talk to us and give is some information about it. And there are things you can watch on YouTube about it as well. I watched some fits, but it felt a bit weird to be watching them. It seems like such a personal thing. And I watched quite a few documentaries with people talking about what it felt like to have epilepsy, and how it affects your life. I think she’s so aggressive all the time because she doesn’t want people to think that she’s got a disorder or needs help. She doesn’t want to be patronised at all.

Did you do any other research into the situation in Israel?
Yes. I really shouldn’t have done, because Erin was a complete innocent about the whole thing and really naïve about it, but once I’d read the script I had to keep reading, because it opened a completely new world to me.

I got the job months and months before we started shooting, and I actually became a member of the British Library – which is very nice – and I went and found a book about a man who had written a diary of when he was in Palestine at the same time that the character of Len was there. So it helped me no end.

The series was filmed in Israel. Had you been there before?
No, never. And I probably never would have been but for this. For a country that’s so aware of its politics it was brilliant they gave us permission, because we couldn’t have done it anywhere else.

What did you make of it?
That’s such a tricky one. I don’t know really. It’s a beautiful country, it’s warm, it’s got lovely food, Tel Aviv’s an amazing city, it’s a really nice place to film. It’s a very metropolitan place, with a relatively European feel to it.

Politically, it’s not my favourite place in the world. I’d never been anywhere before that was in conflict, and I very much felt that it was in conflict.

Did you see daily reminders of that?
I did, yes. We were staying next to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. The level of security is just astonishing if you’re not used to it. There are people walking around withy guns, and there are massive army helicopters everywhere, and fighter jets going past your hotel window. You don’t get that everyday back here. And the weird thing for me was you knew they were going somewhere. They weren’t just off on an exercise.

Were there any problems with people who didn’t want you there?
I think it was more difficult for us than it was for the actors in the 1940s scenes, because they were all in period costumes and period transport. But when we turned up in Arab areas and put an Israeli army roadblock in the middle of their city, people didn’t know we were actors.

It was particularly difficult for the guys dressed up as IDF soldiers. They had people coming up to them swearing.

So many people were so welcoming, and so pleased that we were making the drama,and filming in their country. But certain people I guess felt like ‘you’re coming over here to tell this story, you don’t know anything about it.’ That’s just human nature.

You’re known for Little Dorrit, Upstairs Downstairs, and you’ve got a film coming out with Nicolas Cage, Season of the Witch, set in medieval times. Was it nice to be making a drama where you were wearing contemporary clothes?
Oh yes! It really was. Costumes are costumes, to be honest, and by the end of anything, you hate them. I always hate them. I want to burn them all when I’m finished with them, I hate them all so much. You end up being really uncomfortable, really hot or really cold, the shoes don’t fit. As much as the costume department are wonderful, there’s only so much they can do.

But in this I got to wear Converse, which was a massive plus. But I’m so thrilled to have done a modern piece. So much stuff is period, and I couldn’t believe my luck to play such an amazing character, and for it to be set in the now. And it has to be good for me that casting people will see me not in a corset for once!

You’ve talked about how much you loved making it, but where does The Promise sit in terms of how proud you are of the piece?
I really hope people watch it, and I really hope they like it, and I hope people don’t get bogged down by the politics, I hope people just watch it for the wonderful story that Peter has crafted.

Little Dorrit will always be so important to me – it was my first big job, it was a character I got to play for six months. So that and this, for different reasons, have to come out top.

I felt so emotionally attached to Erin and so believed her story, and I loved working with Peter so much. I think every job will be different, but I think for me, creatively, and of the jobs I’ll be proud to show people, this is definitely up there at number one. It’s got so much integrity. All actors want to do something that’s good – something that’s pure and has no vanity, something they can be really proud of. Well, for me, this was that job. I’ll be so lucky to ever do a job that I love this much again.

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Foy’s breakthrough follows a flurry of high-profile TV roles, including her turn as the title character in the BBC’s acclaimed miniseries adaptation of the Dickens novel Little Dorrit. Movieline caught up with Foy recently to discuss Season of the Witch, why Cage might be a little misunderstood, and a couple other, older Hollywood legends she wouldn’t mind having a crack at in front of the camera.

So two and a half years ago, before Little Dorrit, you lived with five flatmates and talked about spending a pound for plates at Ikea. Has success since spoiled Claire Foy?
No! I’m no longer living with five other people, though. I think I’d have to be a little mad to do that now. But no, not at all. My life is still pretty much the same since the time I said that.

What has changed for you, at least career-wise? How has your perspective on your work evolved?
I think it’s probably changed the most by getting a little bit older, really. And a little bit wiser. But you can only learn on the job anyway, so I suppose I have learned a lot about acting. God knows what it is that I’ve learned; I have no idea at the moment. But it’s a lot, just by meeting people and listening to people and watching other actors act. And reading so many scripts and books and things. I’ve picked up a lot. But ask me in 10 years. I’ve got no idea at the moment what exactly it is.

Was acting something you always wanted to do or intended to pursue?
No. I didn’t really know acting was something you could do for a living. I suppose I’ve always liked acting ever since I was a kid. But I went to university, and then I went to drama school. I wasn’t doing it from an early age or anything like that. It was something I came relatively late to, for all intents and purposes. But I’ve always had a performer’s instinct, I suppose you could say.

And now Season of the Witch, which signifies your feature-film debut. What’s it about, and who do you play?
Well, it’s about a knight called Behmen, who is Nicolas Cage, and Felson, his mate, Ron Perlman. And they’ve been in the Crusades; they’re religious men. And they’re given the task of transporting a witch who is suspected of causing the Black Plague to an abbey where she’ll be put on trial and that sort of thing. I play said witch. It’s pretty much about their journey across Europe to get to this abbey and all of the horrible things that happen — some of which I’m responsible for, and some not.

What interested you in the role as your debut?
It’s such a different role for me. It held a lot of challenges, and it’s quite a powerful role — a powerful character. It was something I could have quite a bit of fun with as well. Like Dom[inic Sena], the director, encouraged you to follow your instincts and try different things. Even if things went horribly wrong, it was good to have a good. All those things, really. As soon as I met Dom, I thought he was brilliant. I really got on well with him. And this was something I just hoped I’d get.

In terms of channeling that power you mention, what did you think you could do with it?
It’s quite a manipulative role; the character does a lot of manipulating. Pitting other people against each other, being quite mischievous… That was something I thought would obviously be good to do. I don’t know if I really thought about how I’d play it or anything like that. I just did my work. It was all in the script that Bragi wrote. What he wanted was pretty much there. There wasn’t a lot of deviation from what’s there.

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. That’s kind of a potent combo—
“Potent” is exactly the right word. I had a brilliant time. They’re both so different but they both get on so well. It’s interesting. And they both have so many stories to tell. They’ve been at this for quite a long time, so it was interesting to see them bouncing off each other a bit. They’re an interesting pair, and we had a lot of laughs.

Because Nic Cage is crazy, right? Or intense, or…
Um… I wouldn’t describe him as “intense.” I’d describe him as really funny. But I don’t know. I think people can get confused; sometimes people think people really are how they appear onscreen — that some people have a certain profile, so they’re a certain way. Or they might have done certain things when they were younger, and people have followed them around forever. But for me, Nic is just Nic. And he’s such a lovely man, and he’s got such a lovely family, and I had such a good time working with him. It’s quite a big deal meeting Nicolas Cage! And he lived up to every possibility of every way I thought he might be like.

Have you seen the video circulating of his biggest screen meltdowns?
No! No.

Ah. I was curious what you thought might be compatible from Season of the Witch.
Oh, no, no. He’s strong as houses, Nic.

In the States, more and more film actors are taking advantage of roles on TV. Of course, you had your breakthrough on TV. Do you intend to stick with that going forward, or are movies more your speed?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I’ve done one film since I did Season of the Witch, but TV’s where the work is, really. And TV’s where a lot of great scripts are. But every job’s got its merits. I haven’t been over to Hollywood or anything since doing Season of the Witch, so who knows? But my main focus is to do more theater, really. That’s the next thing I’d like to do — really, really. But I don’t know. There are so many wonderful, wonderful jobs in British TV. There are so many opportunities. But it’s really just [that] what auditions you get are what you get. It’s not brain science or anything like that.

Are there any specific roles — in literature, theater, TV, film — you’d love the opportunity to play at some point?
Not particularly. There’s always a specific idea what jobs you’d like to do. I’d like to do something political — something maybe low-budget. I’ve done something like that recently. I always wanted to be in a period drama. I’ve done that now, so that was all right. Oh, I’ve always thought I’d love to play — and I never really think about parts, because you’ve got to wait for people to write them — but I’d love to play Elizabeth Taylor or Vivien Leigh in the story of their life. But only sheerly for my own enjoyment. [Laughs] I’m not sure anyone would want to watch me pretending to be Elizabeth Taylor or Vivien Leigh.

Of course we would? But why them?
I don’t know. I think it’s probably just because I grew up watching Gone With the Wind and wanted to be Vivien Leigh. And also, the glamour — all the things everybody loves about Hollywood. I just think it would be an exciting thing to do.

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iamROGUE.com recently had the chance to talk with Claire and we briefly spoke about her work in Little Dorrit and Going Postal, but we talked a lot about playing a witch in her latest. She is funny and extremely charming. She opened up about working with Nic and Ron, researching the role, and about how it wasn’t the “boys club” that you might think.

So be sure to check out Season of the Witch when it opens on January 7 at a theatre near you.

Well I first have to say there is a big difference between Amy Dorrit [in Little Dorrit] and Season of the Witch isn’t there?

[Laughing] Yeah, there is.

What brought you to this role?

My evil side [Laughing]… I mean, I don’t know. I did the audition, they liked my take… and then I got the job. That was it really. It was a shocker to me as much as everyone else. I’m very grateful because it turned out to be a really great job and I loved it.

How did you approach this role as opposed to something like Little Dorrit or your work in Going Postal?

Well it’s all pretty much the same really, for me, weirdly I suppose; Little Dorrit was more of a stretch than Season of the Witch, in a weird way. Because Amy was so internal and with Season I felt I was able to do more and with Amy it was about doing less all the time. But just in exactly the same way you take every character on its own merits in the same way. I did just the same amount of work for them as I did for Season of the Witch, lots of research and it has to all come together…

What kind of research did you do for this?

[It was] just reading things about witchcraft and watching videos and that sort of thing. Or finding out about the time and what the circumstances would be like. Familiarizing yourself with the time and the circumstances of the character. Which all helps when you get kind of set in the world there.

You know, on YouTube you can find videos that feature a “girl possessed by demon”?

I know you can, trust me. I thought about, very early on when I first started working with that script and doing research for it, I went down that route and then, very quickly went, no, I’m not gonna do that stuff. [Laughing] I decided not to go down that avenue.

I think you chose a good path.

I maintained my sanity. I just know that I would think, on no, there is something living in my loft or something. [Laughing] So I stayed clear, very, very clear.

What was the best part of playing this kind of character for you; the witch type, powerful, bad girl must have been fun?

Yeah, all the things you said really, playing such a powerful character. Playing a character that was making things happen, and mainly in control of an entire group of men. And for once, be the character that is completely in the know about everything. There is nothing that she doesn’t know. Nothing is a surprise. And she is able to deal with every single situation that arises the way that she sees fit. And I think that was quite refreshing to be able to play a character that wasn’t entirely beholden to everyone else. And to play a masculine role, because it really is a masculine role.

And you get to work with Nicolas Cage.

Of course.

And of course, I’ve got to know what that was like for you.

It was brilliant. Really, really brilliant. Really great. From day one he was so lovely and so supportive and so kind. He is such a lovely man. And it made it kind of a joy to work with him. I’ve met very few movie stars in my time and Nic was really like, such a movie star, such a star, such an amazing person. He was so special and I loved working with him.

Give it a year or two, you are going to be a huge movie star as well.

[Laughing] Alright then. [Laughing]

In Season, you are also working with Ron Perlman, the great Ron Perlman…

I love Ron.

He’s fantastic isn’t he?

He really, really is.

What was it like working with all these guys? You said earlier that your character was the one in charge, but as an actress you were kind of working in a boys club here.

Quite a few people had asked, you know, did you have to be one of the boys and all that sort of thing. I genuinely think that we all took each other for what we were; it was a random bunch of misfits really. We just had brilliant times, really, really brilliant times. So much socializing, and we were all in Budapest together and we spent so much time together on set, and off set. We just really, really got on. And I think the boys in the end, got quite grateful that there was a girl there. But I was quite willing to leave them to it as well, if they wanted just the boys together, and I’m quite willing to spend the nights at home thanks very much.

Did having you there make them react more gentlemanly, or did they fight for your affections at all?

No. [Laughing] They would – I think in all honesty, Nic is the most gentlemanly of the bunch. In fact, it was Nic and Ron. The rest of them couldn’t care less. [Laughing] Nic would always give me a chair or something and make sure I was warm and that sort of thing. The rest of them would be standing there complaining about how cold it was and I’d be like, yeah, it’s alright for you when you have chainmail and a big furry coat, and I’m in some bloody slip or something. But no, they weren’t at all, I think they just saw me as Claire, the woman on set as opposed to the other girls on set as well, in every other department. It’s never like, if there is one female cast member, that there is only one woman. It was just nice. I really loved it; I really, really loved being part of that group and being accepted. It was just wonderful.

Can you talk about the stunts and how much you had to do yourself?

You know, a lot. I didn’t get into it and now I go extreme surfing or that kind of thing. But I got the job done. And I will never be entirely proficient at it, I’ll always be a bit rubbish but that is fine. The next job if I ever have to do a stunt, I’ll know a little more that I’m not the best at it. But I did get to do some really bad ass flying and none of the boys got to do that. And I got to spend a lot of quality time in my cage and all that. But I didn’t get a sword. I would’ve loved a sword; I would’ve loved to have sliced someone’s head off.

Do you find going for the evil in this character did you find a sort of braveness that you didn’t have before?

Possibly… I think, to a certain extent, it does take awhile to have the balls to be able to intimidate Nic Cage. I don’t know. I think I was always very wary of playing evil or being suspicious, or playing the “knowing” character. You know what I mean, like “playing” that as opposed to “being” that. I thought that it was best to not do anything really. If you are going to be scary, just be scary. But there are people like Al Pacino or someone; they don’t have to do anything, you feel like any instant they could go punch someone in the face. They are the scariest type of people. I don’t know whether my witch is like that but that is kind of what I was thinking of. But the most menacing people are the people who don’t do anything. And you just use manipulation and mind-control to make people do what you want them to do.

It works from what I’m seeing.

I’m doing it now. [Laughing]

She is keen to keep her private life out of the spotlight. But with a starring role in the hotly anticipated revival of Upstairs, Downstairs and a US premiere on the way, can Claire Foy avoid getting the Keira and Sienna treatment?

Claire Foy is hungry. It’s midday in the ground-floor café at the National Theatre and she is eating a slice of lemon drizzle cake so big that it’s a wonder the fragile beauty – brilliantly cast in the leading role of the BBC’s award-winning adaptation of Little Dorrit – has the strength to lift it.

Between mouthfuls, the 26-year-old actress explains that she has just finished an audition that had made her so nervous she had skipped breakfast. ‘I really want the part so I can’t possibly tell you what it is because then I know I won’t get it. It’s a bit too good to be true,’ she says a little plaintively.

It has to be said that in a relatively short time – she had just left drama school when she was cast as Amy Dorrit in 2008 – Claire’s career has been a series of ‘too good to be true’ auditions. Shortly after making Little Dorrit, in which she co-starred with Tom Courtenay and Matthew Macfadyen, she auditioned for the main female role in the medieval thriller Season of the Witch.

‘When we had the first official screening of Little Dorrit I had just done my first audition for Season of the Witch and I said to Matthew Macfadyen, “I am up for this Hollywood film starring Nicolas Cage and that’s just never going to happen.” And then a couple of weeks later I was on location in Hungary and Nicolas Cage was walking up to me to introduce himself and I was, like, “Oh!” It was such a whirlwind,’ she says.

There is something very endearing about Claire’s wide-eyed wonder at her own success. Shy, softly spoken and self-deprecating, she insists that winning such high-profile roles has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with luck (round her neck she is wearing a gold horseshoe on a chain). In addition to her Hollywood debut – Season of the Witch will premiere in the US on 7 January – she has starred in Sky1’s critically acclaimed adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, has the central role in Peter Kosminsky’s forthcoming Channel 4 drama series The Promise and (the reason for today’s interview) has a key part in the BBC’s prime New Year drama series Upstairs, Downstairs.

A ‘revival’ rather than a remake, the three hour-long episodes feature a new family and a new cast in the grand Belgravia house that was the setting for the popular drama that ran for five series in the 1970s. The original drama chronicled the divided lives of the aristocrats on the upper floors of the house and their ‘below stairs’ servants from 1903 to 1930, and the revival takes the story on to 1936 and the arrival of the Holland family. Claire plays the beautiful, rebellious Lady Persephone, the younger sister of Lady Agnes Holland (Keeley Hawes). Fears that the hugely popular Downton Abbey – which was rather like an Edwardian country house version of the original series – might steal the thunder of the revived Upstairs, Downstairs are, Claire insists, unfounded.

‘They are very different. I think it will be a success more in the mould of Cranford. It has a brilliant script and a cracking cast, and my role was very frivolous, with fabulous costumes and make-up, and it was so much fun. I just love my job. The weird thing is that when I went to drama school my parents told me that they thought I was “so brave” to choose such a difficult profession. But I don’t see it as brave, I see it as selfish – so few people get to do the job they want to do,’ she says.

The youngest of three children – her sister Gemma is 31 and her brother Robert is 28 – Claire was born in Stockport and spent her early childhood in the Northwest. When she was eight her parents – her father David is a sales consultant and her mother Caroline works for a pharmaceutical company – divorced and she moved to Buckinghamshire with her mother, her brother and her sister. A born show-off (and, she says, the least academic of the three siblings), she took drama and film studies at Liverpool John Moores University, then opted for a postgraduate course at the Oxford School of Drama.

Her student years were fun but financially hard and involved her taking ‘lots of menial jobs’ to help pay her way through university. She is incredibly close to her family, describing her mother as ‘the most wonderful woman in the world’ and her father, who has remarried and lives in Stratford-upon-Avon, as ‘the best’ (she wears a ‘love’ ring on her finger that he gave her last Christmas). Her brother works in finance and her sister is PR manager of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust – and got married last year. Does Claire have a significant other?

‘I am shacked up. It is an actor but I am not saying a word…’ she says, turning from delightfully open to determinedly private in an instant. Claire’s vow of silence about her boyfriend (they met two years ago through work) makes me think that the actor she is ‘shacked up’ with must be equally successful, and in an attempt to draw her out I keeping returning to the subject and coming up with names. Could it be Richard Coyle, her co-star in Going Postal (‘No, he’s happily married with a baby’), or Stephen Campbell Moore from Season of the Witch, or even Christian Cooke, whom she worked with on The Promise (no comment to either)?

‘My secret boyfriend Mr X will find that really funny. We are not living in secret, our friends know and he’s met my parents. I am not saying who it is…actually, it’s Nicolas Cage. No! Can you imagine?’ she says laughing. Claire pulls a face when I ask what she is planning on wearing to the premiere of Season of the Witch. She loves clothes, is addicted to fashion magazines but gets ‘weirdly embarrassed’ when she has to dress up (today she is wearing a maroon midi-dress from Asos with opaque tights and flat black patent brogues).

‘Oh my God! I don’t know. I have never been to a premiere. I have been to a couple of red‑carpet events and had my picture taken, but no one knew who I was – someone had to say, “This is Claire Foy.” One time I was standing there and Katy Perry came up behind me and suddenly the photographers went from saying, “Claire who?” to shouting, “Katy! Katy!” and I said, “Oh, I will get out of the way.”’

In her charmed working life since leaving drama school (her four best female friends have not had the same luck but remain ‘fantastically supportive’ of her success), she has been privileged to work with some amazing actors. Tom Courtenay is a particular favourite, as are Matthew Macfadyen and his wife Keeley Hawes (‘the best couple ever’), and she has huge admiration for their refusal to become ‘celebrities’. Her future career, she hopes, will be like theirs – with an emphasis on the work not the fame.

‘I find fame a very abstract thing to think about – I don’t think that will happen to me. I would hate to be hounded. I think it would be terrible to be Sienna Miller or Keira Knightley and be turned into this paparazzi person. I’d love to have their careers but not what goes with it. There is such an obsession about looks in Hollywood. When I was in LA doing publicity for Little Dorrit I went for an audition just before I had to get on a plane home. So I turned up wearing what I was going to fly in. I thought I was quite smart in jeans and a cardigan and a bit of make-up. But the other actresses were groomed to within an inch of their life, wearing high heels and fabulous clothes, and it was just another world. And I know that I will lose but on things because I can’t do that,’ she says.

Ridiculously modest about her looks (she has the perfect screen face with pale, flawless skin, huge blue eyes and a rosebud mouth), she hoots with laughter when I observe that she doesn’t have make-up on, saying that she is wearing ‘tons – well, a bit of mascara and some concealer’. Happy to adapt to any role – demure in Little Dorrit, glamorous in Upstairs, Downstairs and positively scary in Season of the Witch – she is not particularly vain. ‘Obviously, when I was a teenager I used to spend hours straightening my hair and I had terrible skin that used to really upset me. But when I was 18 I had a horrible growth on my eye that eventually had to be operated on. That taught me not to care so much about the way I looked. I got over myself. I don’t mind how I look for a part as long as it fits the character.’

By now Claire has almost finished her slice of cake and has slipped what’s left into her handbag for later. ‘I love food. I think everyone in my family has a massively high metabolism because there is no other way to explain how much we eat without putting on weight. But we are all rushing round all the time,’ she says with a grin.

As the interview draws to a close I try again to unearth the identity of her ‘secret boyfriend’ (all I know is that he is ‘well known’ and they live on the same West London street as Rufus Sewell, who is an old friend of Mr X).

‘Oh stop it, I am not going to say. Not because I am trying to protect my identity or anything like that, but because this interview is about my acting not my private life. We might be seen out somewhere and it will come out, but I am not going to say. I just want to do the best work I can and I think it’s perfectly possible to be a successful actress – look at Anna Maxwell Martin or Anne-Marie Duff – without having to be a celebrity. Besides, I don’t think I am interesting enough for people to care – I’m not going to be running around with a million different people,’ she says, pausing and then adding, with a long laugh, ‘Only my Mr X.’

Upstairs, Downstairs begins on BBC1 on Boxing Day at 9pm

• Little Dorrit Available on Blu-ray since last week.

• Going Postal Available on DVD, Special Edition DVD & Blu-ray since last week.

• Pulse Writer Paul Cornell tweeted that it isn’t going into series. BBC3 instead chose a pilot they haven’t shown to the public. But he thanked the “brilliant cast, Simon and Helen at World, ace director James, for making Pulse such a great experience.”

• The Promise Formerly known as ‘Homeland‘ it is part of Channel 4′s Autumn Schedule and has its own official page. Seeing the year 2011 after the title here I’d say it’ll maybe air next January.

• Upstairs Downstairs Alun Vega spotted Claire Foy on the set this past Sunday on Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff Bay. The director is Euros Lyn.

• Wreckers A new behind the scenes picture was added to the official Facebook page

GALLERY LINKS:
- Upstairs Downstairs (TV, 2011) > On Set, credit: Alun Vega
- Wreckers (2010) > On the Set, credit: Wreckers Facebook page

Edit: Added 3 more pictures from Upstairs Downstairs filming, thank you Nicole for the heads up!

Going Postal…
It’s the story of Moist von Lipwig and about him pulling his finger out, really. It’s a very human story, it’s about relationships and you can relate to it; there are a lot of modern references. It’s fantasy, but not a fantasy.

Adora Belle Dearheart…
She’s a badass. She’s hard as nails on the outside and she doesn’t give people much of a chance, but actually, underneath, she’s very vulnerable. She’s had a hard life and she’s a sensitive soul deep down, so there are plenty of moments to play when the mask slips.

Adora works for the Golem Trust and Lipwig’s parole officer is a golem. She’s sort of like a recruitment consultant for them and stands up for their rights. Lipwig wants to learn how to manipulate the golems so that’s when she meets him. After that he’s constantly trying to get a date with her. Both her brother and father have died as the result of a family fortune they lost, and the man she blames for that is Reacher Gilt. She hates him with a passion. It turns out that Lipwig has a plan to bring Gilt down, so that is where it all begins between the two of them…

Adora and Lipwig’s relationship…
It’s a love-hate relationship, based mainly on hate. It’s a hidden love on Adora’s side, while Lipwig is very vocal about his love for her and tries to be romantic. They make such a great couple. I’d like to see how their relationship develops and to see them in later life.

Working in fantasy…
The script helps you dispend your disbelief when you’re acting, and because it’s fantasy, nothing has to make sense – it just is. You don’t think about everything you’d usually question, such as giant clay men. It’s really refreshing because you’re at liberty to take risks.

Pratchett books…
I was never really very good with fantasy growing up, but I’ve loved reading this book. It’s so funny, and I didn’t expect that. Terry’s so witty in his writing and every single character has a different voice and I think that’s incredible. As an actor, that’s lovely to read because you can imagine them a bit more.

Golems…
A golem is animated clay. It’s not like a robot, but they don’t need to eat and they don’t get tired like a human being would. I think Adora likes them because they’re uncomplicated. Mr Pump is huge. They’ve done such a great job with the costume but poor Marnix boiled in the 37 degree Hungarian heat inside this giant foam suit.

Costume and make-up…
In everything I’ve done before I’ve had almost no make-up and now I get to have red nail varnish, red lipstick and false eyelashes – it’s really exciting. Adora isn’t a tart though, she’s just really ballsy and she doesn’t wear the make-up so that others think she looks nice, it’s like armour for her. And the costume is fantastic. I love it.

Stilettos…
The stilettos are an interesting addition. I’ve had to ride a horse in them and getting off can be a challenge because the heel tends to get caught in the dress and then the dress gets ripped. The heels are amazing because I’m in a period costume and then I’ve got these shoes from Soho on my feet – patent leather sex shop boots.

Dancing the tango…
I’m not really a natural dancer; I’m keen and enthusiastic as opposed to being gifted. Richard’s very good and I think I make up for not being very well co-ordinated by just wanting to do well. We’ve had to do a lot of practice because it has to be perfect.

Firing a crossbow…
I was trained by a Hungarian man in a field. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be, maybe I have a natural ability with firearms. He sort of said a few things that I couldn’t really understand, I fired it, and he said yes. So that was that. In one of the takes with the bow, I fired it and it pinged off a wall and hit me in the face. I was fine, but the crew were all hiding behind some sort of giant riot shield.

Smoking…
I have to do a lot of smoking. They’re full-on fags, but they’re in a holder and I can’t really inhale. I can’t be smoking while I’m reciting lines anyway, but I did practise blowing it out through my nose so that it wasn’t in my lungs. But I couldn’t tell if it was working and I probably looked like a right wally. Smoking is a big part of the character and the story explains how she started.

The adaptation…
I think you have a responsibility when you’re doing something like this with such a loyal following to do it right. You can’t take liberties and randomly put things in that aren’t in the books. Throughout the production, the attention to detail has been amazing, in the sets especially. Ank-Morpork Square looks incredible and when all the supporting artists are there in their costumes it’s really surreal.

Differences between Little Dorrit and Going Postal…
There are a lot of Dickensian elements to Going Postal, but it’s like Dickens on speed or Dickens in technicolour – the costumes are so bright and the characters so large. Terry’s quite similar to Dickens in that his characters are so defined, and that gives actors a lot of room to really go to town on them. But in Little Dorrit everything was very muted and real. And Dorrit is the complete opposite to Adora. I can’t imagine what would happen if Amy Dorrit met Adora Belle Dearheart, she’d probably have a heart attack.

CLAIRE FOY
‘ADORA BELLE DEARHEART’

Claire Foy was born in Stockport and raised in Manchester and Leeds before her family later moved to Buckinghamshire. She studied drama and screen studies at Liverpool John Moores University before completing a one-year course at the Oxford School of Drama. She graduated in 2007.

During her time at drama school, Claire starred in the plays Top Girls, Watership Down, Easy Virtue and Touched. In 2008 she made her professional stage debut in DNA and The Miracle, two of a trio of one-act plays at the Royal National Theatre. Claire’s big break came in 2008 when she won the lead role in the BBC’s 14-episode costume drama Little Dorrit, starring alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Tom Courtenay.

This year will see Claire make her big screen debut, playing a girl who is suspected of being a witch in the forthcoming film Season Of The Witch starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. Claire is currently filming a four-part drama, Homeland, for Channel 4 about an 18-year-old Londoner who spends a summer in Israel and comes face-to-face with the brutal realities of conflict in the Middle East.

SELECTED CREDITS

Film
2010 The girl, SEASON OF THE WITCH

Television
2010 Erin, HOMELAND, Daybreak Pictures/Channel 4
2010 Adora Belle Dearheart, GOING POSTAL, The Mob Film Company/Sky
2009 The woman, 10 MINUTE TALES: THROUGH THE WINDOW, Endor Prod/Sky
2008 Amy Dorrit, LITTLE DORRIT, BBC
2008 Chloe Webster, DOCTORS, BBC
2008 Julia, BEING HUMAN, Touchpaper Television/BBC

Stage
2008 DNA/THE MIRACLE, Royal National Theatre

ADORA BELLE DEARHEART

The daughter of Robert Dearheart, founder of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and sister of the murdered John Dearheart, Adora is cynical, angry and a heavy smoker. She previously worked in a bank but she lost her job when Moist von Lipwig, before he knew her, ruined the banks. Adora currently works for the Golem Trust.

From corsets to couture: 2010 looks set to be Claire Foy’s year!

GALLERY LINKS:
- Scans: Marie Claire (UK) – April 2010
- Scans: InStyle (UK) – April 2010

22 new Claire Foy photos to cheer you all up!

GALLERY LINKS:
- Little Dorrit (2008): On the Set –> Added 20 new HQs of Claire filming Little Dorrit with Matthew MacFadyen
- Events in 2009: The TRIC Awards 2009 –> We didn’t have any photos from this event before!