Claire Foy is a force to be reckoned with – unbelievably precise, intensely committed and often with a surprisingly tongue-in-cheek sense of humour and mischievous glint in her eye, the 42-year-old Stockport native took the world by storm when she embodied a steely young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of . Since then, with two Emmys, two SAG Awards and a Golden Globe under her belt, there’s been no stopping her, as she dashes between sumptuous period pieces and heart-stopping thrillers, slow-burning romances and stately biopics.
Now, she’s returning to the Venice Film Festival with her latest splashy project: Danny Boyle’s , which chronicles the rise of Rupert Murdoch in the late 1960s, and the birth of tabloid culture as we know it. Ahead of its premiere on the showcase’s opening night, we take a look back at Foy’s most unforgettable performances to date.
Before she came to fame as our longest-serving monarch, a bonnet-clad, baby-faced, 24-year-old Claire Foy took on one of Charles Dickens’s greatest heroines in this plush BBC adaptation from period drama stalwart Andrew Davies (the writer also behind 1995’s Pride and Prejudice). Despite it being one of her earliest roles, she’s remarkably self-possessed and endlessly compelling, as the titular plucky young girl growing up in a debtors’ prison and caught in a love triangle with Matthew Macfadyen’s Arthur Clennam and Russell Tovey’s John Chivery. A Royal Television Society Best Female Actor nomination rightly followed.
Many luminaries have played Anne Boleyn over the years – from Natalie Portman in to Natalie Dormer in – but few with the grit, venom and fierce intelligence that Foy brings to the doomed queen in Peter Straughan and Peter Kosminsky’s lauded retelling of Hilary Mantel’s epic. Navigating her way around the ambitions of Mark Rylance’s Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis’s Henry VIII, she’s agile and poised, fearsome and imperious, and then childlike and trembling at the very end. It’s an astonishing turn which earned her BAFTA and Critics’ Choice Award nods.
(2016-2017)
Surely Foy’s magnum opus, she’s simply masterful as the lead of Peter Morgan’s decades-spanning royal saga, imbuing Queen Elizabeth II with vulnerability and heart as well as a certain flintiness and bite. In a wildly talented, high-profile cast which also included Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby, John Lithgow and Jared Harris, she wasn’t the biggest name, but emerged the brightest star, on the receiving end of a flood of statuettes and with the industry’s undivided attention. She was eventually succeeded in the part by Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton, but it’s Foy’s face – her joy, her despair, her unfailing composure – which will be forever burned into the minds of fans.
This (in many ways highly conventional) biopic from Andy Serkis benefits greatly from Foy’s presence. It follows the true story of Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield), a 1950s army captain who became paralysed by polio at the age of 28 – he was given just three months to live, but somehow survived for more than three decades, becoming a vocal advocate for disabled people. She is his wife, Diana, whose determination to save him allows the pair to build a new, gloriously fulfilling life together. Heart-rending work which rises far above the sometimes rote material.
Another entry into the devoted wife canon which quietly transcends expectations, her portrayal of Janet Armstrong, the first wife of astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), brought her yet more acclaim, plus BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award nominations. Damien Chazelle’s account of the Apollo 11 moon landing doesn’t centre on her, of course, but she totally steals the show, communicating so much in her silent glances and stiff smiles.
A Very British Scandal (2021)
My personal favourite performance on this list. If you’ve somehow yet to see Foy holding court as the infamous so-called “Dirty Duchess”, then run, don’t walk, to your nearest screen. The glamorous Margaret Campbell, best known for her marriage to and highly publicised 1963 divorce from her second husband, the Duke of Argyll (Paul Bettany), is the subject of Sarah Phelps’s BBC romp – and it’s one hell of a ride, rife with adultery, bribery, forgery, theft and incriminating polaroids. Draped in pearls and furs, she’s the tornado at its centre, and it’s impossible to look away.
In a knockout cast – Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, Frances McDormand – Foy is one of the clear standouts of Sarah Polley’s terrifying drama, the tale of a group of women in a Mennonite colony who debate their future after unspeakable crimes are committed against them. As Salome, a traumatised mother, Foy is the story’s furious, righteous centre, blowing us all away and collecting SAG and Critics’ Choice Award nods in the process.
A small part which lands a big emotional punch, Foy is the mother of Andrew Scott’s listless screenwriter Adam in Andrew Haigh’s melancholy love story. Alongside Jamie Bell as our hero’s father, she died in a car accident decades earlier, but is remembered by Adam exactly as she was, flaws and foibles all intact. In classic Claire Foy fashion, she does a lot with very little, breaking your heart with the smallest frown or the gentlest flutter of her eyelashes. Naturally, yet another BAFTA nomination came soon after.