Claire Foy will tell you she’s played her fair share of historical figures on both the big and small screens. From her Emmy and SAG Award-winning performance as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Crown” to Janet Armstrong in “First Man” to, more recently, Emily Richardson-Wain in “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.” But the challenge of portraying the utterly complex Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll, in “A Very British Scandal” another matter entirely
The daughter of a successful businessman, Campbell married Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll (Paul Bettany) in 1951. By all accounts, the marriage was something of a mess. When the Duke filed for divorce in 1963 he produced a photograph of his wife appearing to give fellatio to a headless naked man. He’d stolen the photo from her private desk to use as evidence against her. The trial was supposed to remain private, customary at the time, but instead, salacious details of the case leaked to the British press. The judge presiding over the case and the media eviscerated the Duchess’ reputation by chastising her for having numerous affairs outside of her marriage. The Duke, who was absolutely no angel himself, basically got away scot-free while the Dutchess profile in British society was completely destroyed.
Foy, who knew of the term “the Dirty Dutchess,” but not its origins, thinks the story is more than timely today.
“I think you see echoes of it today,” Foy says. “I think that what we would frown upon now is the moralizing about a woman’s sexuality, about her right to sex, about extramarital affairs, all those sorts of things. I think that we would go, ‘Oh, come on. We’re only human. Everyone’s human. And also a woman has as much right to have sex as men do.’ But I think that the judgment element of it, where it comes from, I don’t think has really changed, which I think is awful. But I think that the need for other people to be the enemy, other people to be wrong, other people to lose their value or right as a human being, because they’re in the newspaper or because they’ve done something that you think is wrong.”
Over the course of our conversation, Foy discusses her love of researching her characters, the truth about the Duchess’ actions, and, most intriguingly, her upcoming role in Sarah Polley‘s new film, “Women Talking.”
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The Playlist: Congratulations on “A Very British Scandal.” I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but there are some critics who feel it might be the best performance of your career so far. How do you take that?
Claire Foy: Really? [Laughs]
Yes!
Oh, I mean, it’s better than it being the worst, I suppose. I’ll take it where I can get it quite frankly. Yeah. I’m surprised by that, I suppose. I think it was one of my most difficult for lots of reasons. Yeah, I found her pretty hard to get a hold of for so many reasons. I think all sorts of things to do with probably how things have changed due with COVID, rehearsal, and meeting the director and all those sorts of things where you get to try the part on a bit before you play it. I think at that particular time when we shot it, it was very COVID heavy. So, it was very much like you didn’t meet anyone in person until basically you were on set. And that, I found just strange and bizarre, but then also just who she was as a person. She was pretty…you would think you get to know her and then she’d slip through your fingers and do something completely irrational. And I think the way Sarah [Phelps] wrote the script was very true to how she was, but that made it pretty difficult to play. I couldn’t judge her and I had to accept the fact that she was in charge and I wasn’t, which I don’t really like.
She was also in an abusive relationship and taken advantage of by her husband. But she was also flawed. She was human. She made mistakes. Do you think that was part of you coming to terms with her as a character?
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the main things I appreciated about the script actually was that Sarah didn’t try and rewrite who she was. And that’s what I really didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to try and soften her edges and I didn’t want to make her more understandable. What I loved about her was the fact that she could say things like, “I want to buy a baby.” And that’s the last thing you were expecting her to say. Not because she was a surprising person, but just because who thinks they can buy a baby? Regardless of what period of time they’re in. But it was so indicative of her character and there were no limits to what she could have. Her father was a self-made man. She saw money exchanging hands. She saw people falling in love. She saw, in her world, that everybody got what they wanted as far as she was concerned because she couldn’t see other people’s points of view. She had very little empathy or sympathy or understanding. She just had no timeframe. She didn’t really engage in it.
During the war, she lived at the Dorchester Hotel because it was the safest place to be and she would go and she would drop her children off in Wales because that was safe. And because she was bored in Wales, she would get the train back and come back to the Dorchester because she would rather be in harm’s way than being bored in Wales with her children. I don’t think Sarah tried to make her more likable, and I pushed that even further. At the end when they’re in the divorce case in court, even though she’s the most privileged woman, she’s a massive snob. She hates other women. She is manipulative. She’s all those things. [But the audience sees] her as a human being [who has] done ridiculous things. She’s hurt lots of people. But ultimately that doesn’t mean she gets to be treated in the way that she is and that she’s basically rotten tomatoes are thrown at her. It’s just gross.
Did you know about this case before you took the role?
No, not at all. I think I’d probably heard the phrase, “the dirty duchess,” which is the way she’s referred to in the UK, which is delightful. I think I’d probably heard that somewhere before. But no, I didn’t know anything about her. It was all a complete surprise. The whole thing was a complete surprise. And therefore, the idea of it centering around fellatio occurring in a photograph. I just was like, “How do I not know about this?” I mean, it’s incredible that at that time that was commonly known. People talked about it, didn’t talk about it. And they loved it but hated it.
My knowledge of British history is clearly not the same as someone born and raised in the U.K., but even I was surprised that this would’ve happened to her in the early 60s. Did that surprise you at all?
No, I mean, no, I think you see echoes of it today. I think that what we would frown upon now is the moralizing about a woman’s sexuality, about her right to sex, about extramarital affairs, all those sorts of things. I think that we would go, “Oh, come on. We’re only human. Everyone’s human. And also a woman has as much right to have sex as men do.” But I think that the judgment element of it, where it comes from, I don’t think has really changed, which I think is awful. But I think that the need for other people to be the enemy, other people to be wrong, other people to lose their value or right as a human being, because they’re in the newspaper or because they’ve done something that you think is wrong. I think the idea that it’s all about celebrity or things like that is also wrong. I think it’s something inherent in human nature. It’s how people behave with their next-door neighbors. When someone does something in a friendship group or something like that, people love to moralize other people’s actions without looking at themselves. And with absolutely no consideration to how they behave, how they would behave, or at least go, “I wouldn’t do that,” but try and understand why someone else would before immediately going, “God, they’re a terrible person.” It’s just that the older I get, the less and less time I have for that approach in life.
Totally agree with you. The Dutchess did do interviews later on in her life. She wrote a book. Did any of that help inform the performance?
I mean, it really helped me. I love anything I can get my hands on, basically, because I love finding out about people’s lives. But also, because it really helps me. I think it’s a funny thing that, I’m definitely the sort of actor who the more I know, the more it helps me. I find everything helpful, everything, because it allows you to piece it all together. But then what’s interesting is the more you get to know that character, the more you let go of the things that hearsay or the things that you go that can’t be actually… She’s saying, the more you get to know the character you know that she’s making something up. So what I had was tapes of her for her ghostwriter who wrote her book. Listening to her talk for 15 hours or something. And she sidesteps every single bloody question. She doesn’t answer anything directly and the things she does answer directly, and there are moments where she’s like, “This is off the record, obviously.” And those were amazing for me because I could hear how she…when you know the facts of the scenario [and she] just boldly rewrites history.
And she did it, she was a terrible liar. But also she did it in a way that was assured. [Personally,] I’m a terrible liar, really bad liar. I can’t lie really. I’ve never been able to. And I think that she, the way in which she lies, I just found fascinating because it’s so much to me about who she was. But also I think a lot of the stuff about her, a lot of the books that were written about her were written by men or they were written with a bias. They were written already with a judgment of who she was, because that’s the thing that sells stories is the salacious side of her character and who she was. And I wasn’t particularly interested in that. What I was interested in and what I’m always interested in is how that person was feeling at that moment in time. What makes that person behave in the way that they do? What’s their biggest vulnerability? What’s their biggest flaw? What’s their biggest dream? All that stuff is the stuff that I want to try and figure out. And a lot of the time you never get to find out because people very rarely say what they really think and feel in my experience of playing real-life people so far. And I’ve played quite a few.
You have.
Unless you are an actor or someone who’s incredibly in touch with your emotions, it’s so difficult to articulate the truth and reasoning behind your actions and how you feel, so hard.
That actually leads to my next question. You talked about the fact that you’ve listened to these tapes and she’s side-stepping all these questions and didn’t want to be truthful. In the court transcripts, however, she finally breaks down in court and admits that she’s in the photo. Why do you think she finally admitted it was her?
I think there are a couple of options, aren’t there? I think that there are, she finally went, “Oh f**k the lot of you. Yeah, it was me. Yeah, it was me and I loved it.” That’s one option and she didn’t care anymore. The other option is the actual process of her being at that trial was exhausting for her. She was treated pretty badly. And when I was in the room in the courthouse that we shot in, I did realize, it was only men and her. And everyone loved her. She would’ve very rarely come up against people disliking her or people’s disapproval because she had a lot of “yes” people in her life, but also everyone around her was doing exactly the same stuff. So to suddenly be in a room full of people looking down on her would’ve been a very new experience. And so part of me did wonder whether it was a defeat. But I think that ultimately what I went with, which really surprised me, was the fact that at that moment it wasn’t so much defiant as accepting of herself, weirdly. That she accepted that there was an honesty in accepting who she was. And she already did accept who she was. And she was willing to say it to people and be judged for it and give up any care about what other people thought. So just saying, “Yeah, it’s me,” was a way of going, “Yeah. That’s who I am.” It wasn’t so much like, “Eh, I hate you all,” but just, “Yes, that is me. Like it or lump it. What are you going to do about it? I’m not scared of you. See you later.” But also when I was performing it, there was also really weirdly a lot of sadness tinged with…and I didn’t realize this…but I weirdly played it to Paul.
Meaning you were looking at him?
I wouldn’t look at him, but it was a way of going, “This is over. I’m not playing the game anymore. Yes, it’s me. We’re now divorced.” He was saying to her, “You are adulterous and this is what you did.” And she was saying, “Yeah, I’m adulterous. And this marriage is over.” And I think that while they were playing the game, the marriage was still alive, weirdly. And both of them were enjoying the fact that they were still together in that same way that in a toxic relationship any communication is better than no communication. And that’s what they were doing. And so weirdly, it was really interesting actually and quite exciting as an actor to go, oh, actually there’s a real emotional, there’s a relationship beat here, which is about these two people. That marriage is over by her saying that.
And, also in that scene, which surprised me, Paul plays it as though the Duke is realizing he’s made a mistake. That maybe he shouldn’t have done this. It’s all very subtle. Was that in the script or do you think it was just a spontaneous moment in his performance?
Well, that’s the thing is we were both…Paul was leaving the job and I had another month to go on my own. So, I was like, “Don’t go. Please don’t go.” But I think, yeah, I think it was something that we both discovered in that [moment]. Like I said to him, “This is really weird, but I’m feeling really sad.” He was like, “I am too.” And I think it was because up until that point, we had played the relationship without realizing it. And we were surprised by that. That we had been, even though it was an awful relationship, what had worked for us as actors was that relationship, was that dynamic. And it bled into every aspect of the show for me and him, I think. Every action that she did was influenced by him or for him and vice versa, even though they were still independent people. He died very soon after they got divorced, really, within the next five years or something. And Paul and I rewrite history that she was really probably the woman of his life, who he loved the most, even though he absolutely hated her guts.
That is the definition of a toxic relationship. So I have to tell you one of my most anticipated movies hopefully of the year, I hope it’s coming out this year, is Sarah Polley’s new film “Women Talking. I think you shot it this past winter or spring?
No, last summer.
Oh, so it’s done.
It’s done, baby. Yeah.
Can you tease anything about it? Can you tell us what that experience was like?
The experience was extraordinary. I’ve been really lucky. I’ve done some really, really, really special jobs. And there is something about every job that I find special. One, I’m working, but two, that there’s always something amazing that happens when you’re shooting something in whatever way that might be. But this was just, my heart was completely in it. I just think as soon as I met Sarah, I just fell in love with her. And I just I loved her work already. And when we spoke, I felt like I’d met someone that we spoke the same language. And then it became more and more ridiculous as time went on, who was attached to it. We always knew Fran was going to be in it. But then it was that Ben Whishaw was in it and then Rooney [Mara] was in it. And then Jessie Buckley was in it and then Judith [Ivey] was in it. And I just was like, this is just obscene, so amazing. The dream, just the dream. And then we all met and it was just such an incredible group of women. And it was a joy to spend time with them and to talk to them. And there was just such an incredible, I can’t even…I bang on about it forever. It was just beyond special. It was incredibly difficult also, incredibly grueling and hard, but just a once-in-a-lifetime job, just amazing.
And just to clarify, from your point of view, this is not like any other film Sarah’s made before, right?
It’s not like any other film anyone has made before. But I mean, I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t know. But it’s, I mean, it’s vast. It’s massive in its sentiment and its language and its message. But it’s also tiny and small and minute and feminine and about intimate relationships between people, but God and the universe and human beings. It’s just, it’s everything.
Well, I’m very excited then.
I don’t quite know. And it’s also about Mennonites and sexual abuse. So, it’s got everything.
“A Very British Scandal” is available now on Amazon Prime Video.