The Crown star Erin: I feel so close to Princess Anne (even if I do shop at Lidl!)
SHE became a fans’ favourite when she pulled off what was perhaps one of the more difficult challenges facing the cast of actors playing the Royal Family in The Crown.
But Erin Doherty, who portrayed notoriously prickly Princess Anne, admits to being baffled by fame.
She was unimpressed when she was photographed by paparazzi while shopping at her local supermarket.
‘I remember being told “You’ve been papped outside Lidl”, and I thought, “Well, I was just doing my food shop! I don’t know what’s interesting about it,”’ she says in an interview today with You magazine.
And she recommends Lidl’s often eccentric bargains to the Princess who famously recycles her outfits.
Erin says: ‘If Anne knew the deals that were going on, she’d be in there, getting some flippers. You know – for going in the sea! I’m telling you, you can get flippers, oven trays, shoes – anything.’
Yet Erin is not so sure what the reaction of the Princess Royal would be to her in person.
On the prospect of meeting Anne – who reportedly described the Netflix hit as ‘quite interesting’ – Erin says: ‘I feel like I know her, and I feel like she’d rip me apart – but in a nice way!
‘She’d say, “Well, you didn’t do this and you didn’t do this, but you did that right.” ’
Erin hopes that she would receive ‘just one compliment’ from the Princess, adding: ‘That’s probably what I’d ask, “Was there anything? Did I do any of it right?”’
The 29-year-old was propelled to fame when the third season of The Crown aired in 2019.
She was so popular with viewers that the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, was asked to write more scenes featuring Princess Anne in the fourth season, released the following year.
The actress, who continued to live in a property in South-East London with friends even after becoming a star of the streaming drama, says she feels a real ‘sympathy’ for the Royal Family.
Erin describes how the cast of The Crown were given lessons on eating etiquette and how, as a result of studying the Windsors, she has greater respect for them.
‘I have a special place in my heart for the time I spent working on The Crown,’ she says. ‘I think we can all relate to what that situation must be like to grow up in. I have massive sympathy for the whole family.
‘There are things that they have easier than some people, but they’re also growing up within a straitjacket – it must be really isolating.’
Star of the recent BBC drama series Chloe, Erin has recently abandoned flat-sharing to buy a home with her long-term actress girlfriend Sophie Melville. ‘It’s amazing,’ she says. ‘You can just use the kitchen whenever you want!’