Claire Foy Reveals Her First Director ‘Shouted at Me’ to ‘Start Acting, Darling!’: ‘Not Very Nice Directors Need Someone to Bully on Set’

Zack Sharf
·2 min read
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Claire Foy recently appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast while on the press tour for “All of Us Strangers” and was asked to reveal the worst acting note she ever got on set from a director. She didn’t hesitate to answer: “Start acting, darling!”

“First job I ever did on TV, which was ‘Being Human.’ The pilot, with Russell Tovey and Andrea Riseborough. I didn’t know what I was doing and he shouted it at me,” Foy remembered. “It’s taken me a long time to accept that it was actually a very unkind thing to do to a 23-year-old on their first job ever.”

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Foy said that “instead of taking [a newcomer actor] under your wing and helping them,” as perhaps a kinder filmmaker would do, her director was “just shouting at them in front of everyone.”

“Sometimes not very nice directors need someone to bully on set, and I was like that person,” Foy added.

Foy was being interviewed alongside her “All of Us Strangers” co-star Andrew Scott, who turned to her and said, “Oh, that’s horrible.” When Foy revealed that the director “doesn’t really work anymore,” Scott responded: “But you fucking do!”

Despite the bullying on the set of her first television series, Foy stuck with acting and would eventually land her breakthrough role by playing Queen Elizabeth on the first two seasons of Netflix’s “The Crown.” She’s currently earning Oscar buzz for her supporting performance in Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers.” Variety chief film critic Peter Deburge named the movie a Critic’s Pick in his review, writing: “The ‘Weekend’ writer-director channels his gift for vicarious intimacy and erotic chemistry in this stylish supernatural puzzle.”

“All of Us Strangers” is now playing in theaters courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. Watch Foy and Scott’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.

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