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

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.

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

Artificial Eye will release the pic in Blighty alongside a day-on-date release with its online platform Curzon On Demand.

The pic, toplining Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy and Shaun Evans, will screen at the London U.K. Film Focus event in the capital next week.

Hood directed and penned the pic, a drama that sees a married couple move back to the husband’s childhood village to start a family. A surprise visit from the husband’s brother ignites a sibling rivalry and exposes the lies embedded in the couple’s relationship.

Simon Onwurah produces.

Source

GALLERY LINKS:
- Wreckers (2010): Posters & Covers
- Wreckers (2010): Production Stills
- Wreckers (2010): On the Set
- Scans: TV Times (UK) – February 26-March 4, 2011
- Scans: Daily Mail Weekend (UK) – February 26, 2011

Thanks to Lorna for the scans.

We haven’t heard much about Claire’s upcoming independent British movie ‘Wreckers‘ which was shot during the summer of 2009. But for a while now there has been an official Facebook page where director Dictynna Hood is posting updates about post production as well as pictures from behind the scenes, including some gorgeous shots of Claire. I’m now officially intrigued. Hopefully, co-star Benedict Cumberbatch’s recent success in ‘Sherlock‘ will help the movie get a release date soon! Here’s the extended ‘Wreckers‘ synopsis:

WRECKERS is a psychological drama which examines the fragile relationship between truth, intimacy and betrayal.

Recently married couple, David and Dawn, return to Davids childhood village to start a family. Their relationship seems idyllic, but getting pregnant is proving difficult and is adding to the strain of building their perfect home. A surprise visit from David’s brother Nick, a soldier, on leave from Afghanistan, slowly exposes the lies embedded in Dawn and David’s relationship. Through Nick, Dawn discovers more about the siblings’ painful childhood and begins to wonder how well she knows her husband.

Disorientated by her husband’s sudden volatility, she is inextricably drawn to Nick. Dawn becomes a hostage to an increasingly precarious sibling friction, putting the couple’s relationship to the ultimate test.
Source: Official ‘Wreckers’ Facebook page

GALLERY LINK:
- Movies & Television > Wreckers (2010) > On the Set (credit: Facebook)

Added two photos from the British Academy Television Craft Awards 2009, the Russian poster for Season of the Witch and two brand new Wreckers stills.

Wreckers is a drama with a dark, erotic heart, and a unique twist on the theme of the returning soldier.

A dark tale of love, desire and secrets, between brothers and a new bride. Starring Claire Foy, Benedict Cumberbatch and Shaun Evans.

Wreckers was shot on 16mm last Summer on location in the Fens and outside London.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Events: British Academy Television Craft Awards 2009
- Season of the Witch (2010): Posters & Covers
- Wreckers (2010): Production Stills

Dawn and David are visited by Nick, David’s brother, a soldier on ‘R&R’ from Afghanistan. Dawn is a comfort to Nick, who has episodes of sleepwalking and nightmares. David is angered by their easy manner with each other – more angry than seems necessary to the situation. Dawn tries to discover what is the secret that binds David and Nick together… but she is a flawed detective…

Which of them all is the guilty party?

Source

It seems like Claire’s character’s name is Dawn.

Finally something new to update Claire Foy Source with!

Like Guy had informed us in the beginning of July, Claire Foy was then filming the low-budget drama Wreckers, with locations in London and a village in rural Cambridgeshire called Isleham.

Now that the August issue of the Isleham Informer is out, we have a scan from director Dictynna Hood’s interview that also features two photos from the production. The film is currently in post-production and its storyline is broadly described as a ‘moody psychological love story.’ Co-stars include Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement), Shaun Evans (Telstar) and Sinead Matthews.

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: Isleham Informer (UK) – August 2009

Claire is presently filming a low-budget drama called Wreckers, with locations in London and a village in rural Cambridgeshire. The film is hoped to have a cinema release and the BBC have also expressed an interest. An interview with the film’s director will appear in the next issue of the Isleham Informer – the parish magazine of the village location.