When Olivia Colman was invited to Buckingham Palace earlier this year, she nearly levitated off the floor of the London home she shares with her husband Ed Sinclair and their three children.
“I said, Oh my God, Eddie! Were going to Buckingham Palace for dinner, ” recalls Colman, the beloved British actress who, at age 44, is earning overdue Hollywood accolades. “I thought it was just a little group of us invited. What an idiot I was,” she says, explaining that the event ended up being a 200-person reception hosted by Prince William. “We were so uncool.”
At the time of her royal invitation, she had just begun rehearsals to play Queen Elizabeth II on two forthcoming seasons of Netflixs The Crown. And she had just portrayed another British ruler, Queen Anne, in Yorgos Lanthimoss wonderfully perverse period drama The Favourite, co-starring Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. The modest actress, best-known for consistent excellence in supporting roles on British television, seems to interpret these back-to-back marquee monarchs as more of an anomaly than the “Finally!” career moment her fans view the parts as being—the satisfaction of the long-enduring supporting actress lassoing leading roles. So, walking into Buckingham Palace, Colman naturally related to the supporting staff: “They were so warm, so lovely,” she says, as we sit in her Soho hotel room on a crisp October afternoon in London—Colman in well-worn jeans and a tee shirt, her overstuffed purse tossed nearby. “They were like us.”
This is not to say that Colman was not charmed by the future King of England.
“He just went, What are you doing. . . Oh, no. I know what youre doing here. ”
Interpreting Prince Williams comment as acknowledgment of her recent casting on The Crown, Colman couldnt help but ask her host, “Do you watch it?”
“He said, No, no, dear. I dont watch it. But maybe he cant say that he watches it,” she says. “He had this magical quality—he made you feel like you were the most exciting person hed met. You think, Well that cant be the case, but Im feeling wonderful. Im glowing. ”
This might sound like an exaggeration, but Colman was actually glowing. In a photo immortalizing this introduction, the actresss face is lit up in absolute euphoria. (In the picture, Eddie looks equally thrilled.)
Colman by that time had won three BAFTA awards, for her work on the TV series Accused, Twenty Twelve, and Broadchurch, and a Golden Globe, for AMCs limited series The Night Manager; been publicly christened “divinely gifted” by Meryl Streep after playing her characters daughter in The Iron Lady; and been cast on a series that comes with its own Buckingham Palace. But the Norfolk-raised actress was delirious about being inside the real-life landmark. She also has a naughty sense of humor, having practiced in the same Cambridge University comedy troupe as Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry. (Thats where she met Eddie.) Those factors, plus her contact high from Prince Williams handshake, overtook Colman. She turned to Eddie and whispered, “Go get some loo roll.”
And so Eddie, devoted husband of 17 years, found one of the palaces 78 bathrooms and stuffed some into the pocket of his dinner jacket.
“He got two squares of loo roll, just to say, We got it from Buckingham Palace,” Colman says.
Olivia Colman is a woman who feels strongly, immediately, and without cynicism. She is an equal-opportunity enthusiast on all things unrelated to Olivia Colmans accomplishments. (A proper Brit, she complements any joy with equal parts self-deprecation.) The evening after we meet, onstage at the BFI London Film Festival premiere of The Favourite, Colman will mouth to her friends in the audience, “Can you believe this?!”—as though she had been randomly plucked from the crowd to help introduce the film at her first-ever premiere. She will be so delighted in the moment that Lanthimos will have to gently remind Colman to leave the stage so they can begin screening the movie.
This outsize enthusiasm would seem false in most people. But in Colman, a superhuman empath descended from two empaths—her mother worked as a nurse and her father is a surveyor who “will sit and cry at anything on the telly”—the emotions are authentic and, since she had children, all too available. “Im constantly on the verge of tears at the thought of anything sad, or happy—anything, really.”
To play Queen Anne—the forgotten 18th-century monarch so consumed by grief that she sacrifices her power to those around her—Colman did not have to do research, as much as conjure a 3-D emotional scan of her character from Tony McNamara and Deborah Daviss script.
“To have lost 17 children at varying stages, I can sort of imagine what that felt like—though you dont really want to,” she says. “Once I knew that about her, I didnt care what she did. If thats happened to you, I think you behave however you want.” Though Colman has played put-upon women who have silently and sometimes weepily endured trauma, she always sees their inner fortitude, noting of Queen Anne, “You couldnt cope with all of that and not be extraordinarily strong.”
Emma Stone co-stars as an ambitious courtier named Abigail who jockeys with Rachel Weiszs Sarah Churchill for the position of the queens confidante, advisor, and sometime lover. The fluid power struggle between females is a refreshing antidote to period dramas where women are relegated to polite roles as constricting as their corsets. Colman and Stone relished their shared scenes, in which they had the freedom to veer un-prettily between vulgar, villain, and victim. Stone met Colman during rehearsals, and says she made her—the only American in the principal cast—feel at home in England. “She wants everyone to feel like family and be in one room together,” says Stone, revealing that Colman had her over to her home, each time inviting Stone to spend the night rather than make the long trek to central London. Stone says, “Id be heartbroken if we didnt stay friends᠁ Olivia is the warmest person—she kind of crashes through the ice, though there is no ice to begin with.”
In Colmans most devastating scene, her Queen Anne confides in Stones Abigail about the children she lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or illness. “Some were born in blood, some without breath, and some were with me for a very brief time,” Colman says quietly. “Each one that dies, a little bit of you goes with them.” On set, Stone was so moved by her co-stars line reading that her eyes welled up and Colman cried in reaction—a full-blown tear-duct domino effect that ruined several takes.
“Everythings very close to the surface with Olivia,” says David Tennant, who co-starred with Colman on Broadchurch. “She laughs more heartily than anyone, and she cries more rawly than anyone . . . thats part of the key to her brilliance.”
While filming The Favourite, Colman and Stone developed their own inside jokes, a bond that made their most intimate scene—in which Abigails hand wanders up Queen Annes leg in bed one night—all the more challenging to film.
“The scene where I finger her was difficult because we kept laughing during it. We were such good friends at that point,” says Stone, also mentioning something cryptic about a sponge.
When I recall the discussion for Colman later, a glint appears in her eye.
Colman, who played Queen Anne in The Favourite, has joined the cast of The Crown as Queen Elizabeth II. Left: jacket and shirt by Dries Van Noten; socks by Charvet; shoes by Churchs.
Photograph by Jackie Nickerson. Styled by Robert Rabensteiner.
“Did she tell you about the damp sponge?”
She mentioned a sponge, I say, but did not expound.
“This will help,” Colman says, proceeding to re-enact the filming of the scene. “It was just hilarious that her arm was going under [my nightgown]᠁ But she was terrified that shed go too far.” Colman came up with a practical solution—she would put a physical barrier between Stone and herself so her co-star would know once she reached her limit. Colman asked a nearby makeup artist for “anything that is sort of sponge-like?”
The artist produced a sponge. “I thought, Great, that would be funny. So I put that there.” The next take, says Colman, “You could see [Emma] going, Ah! What have I found? It was this damp sponge that she had to finger.”
I tell Colman the sponge was a quick, method-acting fix.
“Well if I was method, I wouldnt have had a sponge there at all,” Colman says deadpan, a cup of tea now in hand. “Poor Emma would have found something much scarier.”
Colmans ease in summoning spit-takes is no surprise considering she began her career in comedy, spending eight seasons on the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show. It was only after Colmans agent advised her to establish her own identity that she took greater risks. In 2011, Colman—who graduated from the same Bristol Old Vic Theatre School as Daniel Day-Lewis and Jeremy Irons—made her dramatic breakthrough in Paddy Considines indie Tyrannosaur. Her raw performance as the victim of an abusive husband was not seen by a massive audience. But those who saw it were deeply moved. Streep has singled out the film as a “breathtaking” work, marveling that Colman was not recognized. A blogger launched a fund-raising campaign in hopes the film could be screened for awards voters. Other supporters were so enraged by Colmans subsequent BAFTA snub that their profane complaints got the actresss name trending on Twitter.
Lanthimos was so transfixed by Colmans turn that he cast her in a supporting role in his 2015 dystopian black comedy The Lobster. During that collaboration, Lanthimos was impressed with her versatility and ability to summon any emotion “like lightning,” and by “what a wonderful human being she is.”
While filming The Favourite, Colman felt so bad about screaming at an actor who played an attendant that, every time Lanthimos called cut, she would double back to apologize. When I first meet Colman, in her hotels lobby, she refuses to let me help carry any of the bags or boxes she is struggling to hold onto. Before ordering us room service, she explains, “I have a hard time letting anyone do things for me.” A junior publicist behind her nods.
Colmans palpable goodness and excitable nature—evident in everything from her nature-special voiceovers to an Oscar-worthy tour de force on the BBC One reality-TV program Who Do You Think You Are?—have enchanted English audiences. (One viewer reacted to the latter program by wondering on Twitter, “Is everyone in love with Olivia Coleman [sic] . . . what a joyous and enthusiastic woman. We need more Olivias in this world.”) Though Colman is celebrated in the U.K.—she topped Idris Elba, Benedict Cumberbatch, and David Attenborough as the most powerful person in British TV this year, according to the Radio Times—her excellence has mostly gone under the radar in Hollywood, where she has been relegated to peripheral parts like Judi Denchs maid in 2017s Murder on the Orient Express. Credit goes to Lanthimos for placing Colman front-and-center in a role that utilizes her full range, spotlighting her brilliance rather than relegating it to the shadows.
Asked if Colman feels, nearly 20 years into her career, as though shes finally “made it” with her roles as Anne and Elizabeth—the latter of which will introduce her to a large American audience when they binge-watch the new season of Netflixs The Crown—Colman laughs so hard that tea nearly comes out of her nose.
“Can you imagine if I really said that to myself, Ive arrived. No, I think you should always go, Great, Ive got a job. Ill try and do it well. The glow of getting a job lasts about a week, and then you need to stop being a dick and go back to work.”
One of the first things Colman did upon accepting her role on The Crown was teach her parents how to use Netflix, so that they could binge-watch the first two seasons.
“Theyre quite excited, and I think a little bit anxious that Claire Foy might be much better,” Colman says, referring to her Emmy-winning predecessor. This role is a bit more nerve-racking for Colman “because everyone knows what the Queen looks like, what she sounds like, and everyones in love with Claire Foy, including me.”
Colmans sensitivity has caused some difficulty playing Elizabeth, who is the emotional opposite of Anne. (It was not their only challenge. “Queen, not farmer!” one director chided the actress, after seeing her slouched posture.) “I emote. The Queen is not meant to,” says Colman. “Shes got to be a rock for everyone, and has been trained not to [emote]. Weve discovered that . . . whenever anyone is telling me something sad, it makes me cry.”
Someone on set has since come up with a solution for such scenes.
“Its sort of shameful, but they give me an earpiece and they play the shipping forecast,” Colman says, referencing the BBC Radio broadcast in which weather reports for seas around the coast of the British Isles are delivered in tones soothing enough to put soldiers to sleep. “Its somebody going, And the winds are fair to middling . . . blah, blah.” With the earpiece in, Colman says, “Im sort of not listening to what they are saying. Im trying so hard to tune in to the shipping forecast and not cry.”
Acknowledging how preposterous this could look in print, she deprecates. “Really good actors around the world are going, Fucking hell! ” But in Colmans defense, The Crowns next season tackles several tragedies, including the Aberfan disaster of 1966, which reportedly caused the eternally composed actual Queen to cry, and Winston Churchills 1965 funeral, for which the Queen broke royal protocol to honor her first prime minister.
Says Colman, “There are moments like that when she will change the tradition and say, This is ridiculous. He was important to all of us, and he was a prime minister—a guide to her grandfather, her father, to her. The rules change now. Well done her.”
Colman, who got her start in TV comedies, finds portraying Elizabeth in The Crown a challenge. “I emote,” Colman says. “The queen is not meant to.” Coat and shirt by Prada.
Photograph by Jackie Nickerson. Styled by Robert Rabensteiner.
Colman grew up fascinated by the royals but admits, “I went through my later teens and student years and sort of thought, I dont know if its right that we have a monarchy.” Her research on The Crown, perhaps, has changed that. “Now, less the monarchy, more the Queen, I think is extraordinary. As a young woman in her 20s, she made a vow to serve her country and shes still doing it into her 90s. I cant think of anyone else who could do that᠁ Shes a very impressive human being.”
There is one triumphant moment during our conversation when Colman dismisses her deference, and it comes when I bring up an announcement made by producers of The Crown this year involving a controversy over Foys pay. Going forward, executive producer Suzanne Mackie proclaimed, no actor will be paid more than the actor playing the Queen. “Im fucking thrilled,” Colman blurts out about her new salary, an overdue raise from the the meagerly budgeted indie film, theater, and British TV projects shes accustomed to.
“Theres all sorts of things now we can fix,” she says, explaining that the paycheck will go to home improvements—just in time to have a place to hang their souvenir from Buckingham Palace. “We can fix the loo, which hasnt worked for about three years.”
Hair by Cyndia Harvey; Makeup by Lotten Holmqvist; Manicure by Adam Slee; Set design by Alexandra Leavey; Produced on location by Holmes Production; For details, go to vf.com/credits.
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