Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Separation is complex in any marriage ...now I’m planning to take a break and do nothing
Girl In The Spider’s Web – and her marriage breaking up, Claire has decided it is time for a long rest.
“I did nothing for this whole summer and I plan not to do anything for quite a while longer,” she says. “Making The Crown and the three movies was really rewarding and amazing but quite exhausting.” When she landed her role in the Netflix series, she had been in various stage plays and TV shows, including Wolf Hall and Upstairs Downstairs. But she was hardly a household name.
“The Crown definitely changed my life,” says Claire. “You get used to where your career’s going but that show exploded that for me and changed my view of what I was doing for a living.” But she says she is still trying to come to terms with her fame. “What’s amazing is the number of people who have seen the show – of all ages and backgrounds and some who say they despise the monarchy but loved the show,” she says.
But on the downside of fame, she adds: “People feel they know me, as opposed to just Elizabeth.”
Claire also tells of how she never hoped to be a big star. “I really am that annoying person who never dreamed of being an actress,” she says. “I just knew I had an inclination towards something.
“I didn’t know anyone who had gone to drama school – I thought it was like Fame on TV. But when I realised there was a drama school I could go to, I did.”
After a studying at the Oxford School of Drama, she got the lead role in BBC mini-series Little Dorrit. But it was her last three films that really tested her skills – with her role as tough, tattooed avenger Lisbeth Salander in The Girl In The Spider’s Web putting her through her paces quite literally.
“It’s very rare to play someone so far removed from yourself,” she says. “I knew it was going be a really intense shoot and I had a lot of physical work – stunts, a lot of running and throwing myself around.
“I loved the action because it was something so different for me.”
Claire even took a bit of Lisbeth home with her when the filming stopped.
“I loved getting her tattoos,” she says. “I was involved in designing them and in the end they felt like part of my body. Occasionally, I’d look down and think, ‘Oh look, I’ve still got that one on’.”
But after doing the First Man press junkets and walking the red carpet with Gosling, Chazelle and the rest of the cast, Claire will step out of the spotlight.
She says: “I think you have to live your life in order to be an actor, otherwise you’ve got nothing to tell.”
First Man is in cinemas tomorrow.