TheQueenisextraordinary ..I’vefalleninlovewithher
Self-proclaimed left-wing monarchist tells of admiration for ‘ultimate feminist’ and reveals how having to hide emotions was her biggest acting challenge yet
SI can’t hide anything. That was the hardest thing ever
HE’S already bagged a CBE but on Sunday Olivia Colman will step up to become the Queen in Netflix’s The Crown.
The 45-year-old mother of three takes over from Claire Foy, who played Queen Elizabeth in the first two series.
Given Oscar winner Olivia has become a national treasure, what would she do if she was Queen for the day?
“I would make all companies pay all their taxes until the NHS is sorted out,” she insisted.
“The amount those massive companies avoid paying would fix everyone. Once that’s sorted out, I’d grab a pony and go for a trot.”
Doing the show has influenced her feelings about the monarchy.
The daughter of a chartered surveyor and a nurse, Olivia admitted: “I’m one of those rare left-wing monarchists – very conflicted.
“Many countries don’t have one continuum and I’m pleased that we do. I like the fact that some extremes couldn’t happen because she’s there.
“There was an attempted coup (against Harold Wilson’s Labour government in 1968) and she stopped it. In other countries there’s no one above to say, ‘No’.”
And her feelings for the Queen changed as she began filming the new series.
At first, she revealed, she copied Claire’s version of the Queen.
She admitted: “I think I was doing an impression of Claire for the first couple of weeks’ filming but then I just started to do what the script says and I’ve fallen in love with the Queen.
“We’re used to people being a little unclassy and she’s the opposite of that. She’s extraordinary.
“I hadn’t spent much time thinking about it before but now I love her. She’s changed my views C on everything.” laire won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing the Queen – and Olivia’s husband, Ed Sinclair, could not help but be impressed.
Olivia said: “My husband was sat next to me on the sofa saying, ‘Well, she’s amazing.’ I had to turn the volume down on him.”
Olivia, who won an Oscar this year for her role as Anne, Queen of Great Britain, only made her professional acting debut aged 26 in BBC2 sketch show Bruiser.
After becoming well known as Sophie in Channel 4’s Peep Show, she also delighted viewers in Broadchurch, Fleabag and The Night Manager.
While playing a royal has seen her, Helen Mirren (for The Queen), Colin Firth (as King George VI in The King’s Speech) and Judi Dench (as Queen Elizabeth I of England in Shakespeare in Love) win Oscars, Olivia is insistent playing the Queen isn’t the ultimate role.
She claimed playing a cleaner – a job she did when trying to make it as an actress – could be just as wonderful if it was an interesting story.
And while she was privately educated, she has no royal connections she knows of. Instead, her Norfolk family tree is full of farmers, “most of them illiterate”.
The first two series of The Crown charted the Queen’s life from 1947 to 1963. The third series spans the years 1964 to 1977.
Tobias Menzies takes on the role of Prince Philip, who had been played by Matt Smith in the first two series, and Helena Bonham Carter takes over from Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret.
Reviewers have said one of the strongest episodes of the new series is the Queen’s visit to the site of the 1966 Aberfan coal-tip disaster, in which 116 children were among the 144 who died.
As is tradition, the Queen wasn’t allowed to show any emotion – a very difficult challenge for Olivia. She admitted: “I can’t hide anything. That was the hardest thing ever, to play someone much stronger emotionally than me.
“When we filmed the scenes with the tributes and the flowers and the toys, the director would say, ‘Pretend you’re just judging a flower competition’ – because if I thought about what it actually was, I couldn’t cope. I can’t do repression.”
Olivia also told the Radio Times she regards the Queen as the “ultimate feminist”.
The actress explained: “She’s the breadwinner. She’s the one on our coins and banknotes. Prince Philip has to walk behind her. She fixed cars in World War II.
“She insisted on driving a king who came from a country where women weren’t allowed to drive (King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, at Balmoral in 1998). She’s no shrinking violet.”
The new series of The Crown will be released on Netflix in its entirety on Sunday. Read the full interviews with cast members in this week’s Radio Times, out now.
OLIVIA COLMAN ON NOT SHOWING ANY EMOTION