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'The Crown' star Vanessa Kirby talks Margaret's sexy new suitor
Heavy may be the head that wears The Crown, but so are the hearts of the people around it.
One emotional casualty of Queen Elizabeth II’s (Claire Foy) ascension and early reign is her sister, Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby). In Season 1 of the Golden Globe-winning drama, Margaret was forced to give up the love of her life, Group Capt. Peter Townsend (Ben Miles), because marrying a divorced man went against the rules of the Church of England at the time. Their doomed romance set sister against sister, with Elizabeth finally having to put her foot down against the couple.
Now, in Season 2, Margaret is lonely, despondent, and nearing 30 (spinsterhood in those days). Then, she meets the dashing photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones (Matthew Goode) and — history spoiler alert! — marries him.
Kirby talked to Yahoo Entertainment about Margaret’s tortured journey this season, bringing sexiness to The Crown, and the comparison to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s recent engagement.
Yahoo Entertainment: Margaret seems a bit lost at the beginning of the season.
Vanessa Kirby: After having such a wound like that at the end of Season 1, and trying to recover from that, Margaret begins to explore how a human being who has gone through something so difficult tries to put herself back together. This season felt like a journey to find herself — somebody who is so inherently royal, but also trying to escape it. I think she feels like she succeeds.
In the rest of the seasons, I’m sure it’ll get darker and darker for her, but I think she feels like through Tony, she’s managed to rebel and yet remain royal. By the end of Season 2, she really feels like she has found herself. But I think we know, just from Wikipedia, that it doesn’t end happily.
What attracts her to Tony?
He represents everything that isn’t her family; he’s completely the antithesis. What she’s so turned on by is his contempt for them, in a way.
There’s that, but he’s very sexy and elusive, which I think is always attractive to someone like Margaret. She’s always been the dominant one, in most rooms that she’s in. But when she’s with Tony, she feels completely a fish out of water. He’s incredibly talented at what he does. It really contrasts him and Cecil Beaton, the [official court] photographer, and Margaret wants to join the team that’s moving forward and is modern and bold and brave.
Margaret gets a letter from Peter, who tells her he’s getting married. And then she immediately latches on to Tony. At one point, she tells Elizabeth that marrying Tony isn’t about revenge … but it kind of is, right?
I definitely, definitely think there’s a big element of that. I think that’s her way of “winning,” so to speak, at least in our story. It may not have been like that in real life, who knows? But, yeah, it was a sense of “f*** you,” really.
You and Matthew Goode have such great chemistry. How was it working with him?
I actually think he might be the best human in the world, as well as Benjamin Caron, the director. Those two I love more than anything, and it was such a happy time. We laughed all day and we were such a good little unit, and it made it really easy.
[Goode is] so different from Tony — my God, such a different personality! So, to see him transform like that was so exciting. And we very much needed an actor to put me on edge as Margaret. It’s quite hard to intimidate Margaret, and we needed a man and actor who could really challenge her. As well as be the most fun on set ever.
Do you feel like your scenes together bring a sexiness to the show that doesn’t exist elsewhere?
I hope so, because that was how Margaret was feeling. She enters into a completely different world and her flame is reignited. We wanted the scenes to reflect that. Tony represents a kind of anarchist, very promiscuous new age — swinging ’60s London, smoky jazz clubs, very invasive up-close portraits, naked women.
Ben, who is amazing, really wanted us to go into the dark room. Adriano [Goldman], the director of photography, decided that we wanted it completely red, with no light, be smoking cigarettes, and be very close but not say much. It was all in the camera work, really.
It definitely creates a sensuality and seduction, and that’s very different from most of the areas of The Crown. You don’t really see that with the queen and the prime minister!
You have a really great scene with Claire Foy near the end of Episode 7, when Margaret talks to Elizabeth about marrying Tony. And once again, they are at odds, but did you wish they could get back the closeness they shared in the early days?
It’s very interesting, I really wanted them to, in my heart. At one point, I tried to play that, that their relationship was warm again, that they had those moments of closeness again. But in the end, in that scene, it just didn’t work. I realized with such history and such tension and a lack of being able to fully talk about it, so they could heal and come together, it was almost impossible to override that sort of sibling rivalry and resentment that had built up throughout the previous season.
Do you feel like it’s fortuitous timing to have Margaret’s love life and heartbreak in the spotlight again in the wake of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement?
I think it just highlights the difference nowadays and the freedom that you should marry and love who you like. I think [Margaret] is the worst tragedy of that century, love story-wise. That she wasn’t able to [marry] because her sister was born first, her uncle abdicated, her father died prematurely probably from the stress of it, and the impact that has on both his girls. Margaret waits two years while Peter is in a different country while she’s the most eligible woman in the world at that point, and yet she’s still not allowed to marry at the end of it.
What was your biggest challenge in Season 2?
I think the biggest challenge overall was the hardening of Margaret. I was always conscious that she had this reputation later on in life for being really, really difficult, very tart and tough, very icy. And then she became this tragic figure.
I didn’t want to preempt it in the first season, when we meet her at 17. I wanted to try to chart the psychological journey of somebody that is a beautiful, open, bright girl who then becomes harder as things happen to her, as she goes through the Peter Townsend trauma. I wanted, this season, to bring those elements in, but not overplay them.
I would’ve loved to play the kind of dragon that she becomes — it would be so fun! But I knew I owed it to the actors who are going to play her later to not chart that journey too much.
Speaking of the next actors, are you sad to depart the role?
The next actress is going to have so much fun. I’m actually glad we’ll be able to share it; we can talk about it together. I’m so honored to have played her. I’m just lucky that I had two seasons with her. I wish I could do it, I love her, I would love to play her forever.
We know Olivia Colman will play Queen Elizabeth, but any idea on who might take over as Margaret?
I asked Peter [Morgan, the creator] and he just won’t tell me because he says I’ll just tell everyone. Which I would have! [Laughs.]
Any advice for the next actress?
I just think about the amount of cigarettes that I had to smoke. From the ’60s onward, they get filters in cigarettes, whereas in the ’50s, they didn’t have any filters, so I had to smoke these herbal cigarettes without filters and honestly it killed my throat!
The Crown is streaming now on Netflix.
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