TV trick that gave Jenna eyes like Queen Victoria
THE producer of TV’s hit Sunday night series Victoria has revealed his biggest challenge...making lead actress Jenna Coleman’s eyes the right colour.
Damien Timmer explained: “Jenna has brown eyes and Queen Victoria famously had blue eyes.”
Even with a £10million budget to play with in the ITV costume drama, the crew had to use all their ingenuity.
First they experimented with a range of different contact lenses. But it was obvious when Jenna, 30, took screen tests that her eyes still did not look the same colour as Queen Victoria’s.
Speaking to the Radio Times, Mr Timmer said: “Despite everyone’s best efforts in post-production, the contact lenses were really obvious and strange.
“You could see these big plastic rims around her eyes.” A time-consuming and laborious tactic finally provided the solution. Mr Timmer spent three weeks painstakingly going through all eight episodes frame by frame and blurring any visible contact lens edges.
“It cost a lot of money and everyone was very cross with me,” he said.
Victoria has been a big success, despite being shown at the same time as the BBC’s rival period drama Poldark.
Mr Timmer was executive producer of both shows and seeing them pitted against each other was a worry. “We didn’t think it would be possible for both to find an audience,” he admitted.
But Victoria pulled in 5.26 million viewers on Sunday, while Poldark’s figure was a similar 5.15 million. “They both exist happily,” Mr Timmer said.