Claire Foy

Early life and education

Claire Elizabeth Foy was born in Stockport on 16 April 1984 to David Foy and Caroline Stimpson. The youngest of three children, she has an older brother and an older sister. She has Irish ancestry on her mother's side. Foy's family later moved to Longwick, Buckinghamshire, for her father's job as a Rank Xerox salesman. Her parents separated when she was two and divorced when she was eight.

Foy was educated at Aylesbury High School from the age of 12 until 2002, and later studied drama and screen studies at Liverpool John Moores University with a view to becoming a cinematographer. She then took a one-year course at the Oxford School of Drama, graduating in 2007 and moving to the Peckham area of south London to share a house with five friends from drama school.

Career

2008–2015: Theatre work and ''Wolf Hall''

While at the Oxford School of Drama, Foy appeared in the plays Top Girls, Watership Down, Easy Virtue, and Touched. After appearing in small roles on television, she made her professional stage debut in DNA (part of a triptych of plays including The Miracle and Baby Girl), directed by Paul Miller at the Royal National Theatre.

Foy's screen debut was as Julia Beckett in the pilot episode of the supernatural comedy series Being Human (2008). The role was recast for the remainder of the series. Foy starred as the title character Amy Dorrit in the 2008 BBC series Little Dorrit, for which she was nominated for an RTS Award. She went on to appear in the television serial Going Postal (2010), based on the novel by Terry Pratchett. Foy also starred in the 2010 BBC revival of Upstairs Downstairs as Lady Persephone, and co-starred in the Channel 4 serial The Promise, broadcast in February 2011. In 2011, she made her feature film debut opposite Nicolas Cage in the American fantasy adventure film Season of the Witch. The same year she appeared alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in the British drama film Wreckers.

Foy played one of the lead roles, Helen Giniver, in the 2010 television film adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel The Night Watch. Foy returned to the stage in February 2013 as Lady Macbeth, alongside James McAvoy in the title role, in Macbeth at the Trafalgar Studios. In 2015, Foy played the English queen Anne Boleyn in the six-part drama serial Wolf Hall. Her performance was met with critical praise and has been named as one of the best on-screen portrayals of Boleyn. Foy was subsequently nominated for the 2016 British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. She appears in the sequel series The Mirror and the Light via archive footage.

2016–2019: ''The Crown'' and film roles

In 2016, Foy portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's Netflix biographical drama series The Crown. Her performance earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series twice, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She was also nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. In 2017, she reprised the role in the second season, before the role passed to actress Olivia Colman, who from the third season portrayed the Queen in middle age.

In 2017, Foy starred as Diana Cavendish in the biographical drama film Breathe. In 2018, Foy starred in Steven Soderbergh's psychological thriller Unsane, portrayed the vigilante Lisbeth Salander in the action-thriller The Girl in the Spider's Web, and played Janet Shearon, wife of American astronaut Neil Armstrong, in Damien Chazelle's biopic First Man. For the latter, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.

2020–present

In 2020, Foy reprised the role of the young Queen Elizabeth II in the eighth episode of The Crowns fourth season. Her performance earned her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. In 2021, Foy starred as Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll in the BBC production A Very British Scandal. That year she played Emily Richardson-Wain, wife of artist Louis Wain, in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. She also appeared in the film My Son, a remake of the 2017 French film {{ill|Mon garçon|fr}}.**

In October 2021, Foy was cast as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in the drama series Doomsday Machine, based on the book Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang. The limited series landed at HBO for development with the network closing a deal on 8 February 2022 following a multiple-outlet bidding war.

Foy played Salome, an American Mennonite living in an isolated colony, in the drama film Women Talking (2022), for which she won the Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In November 2022, Foy reprised her role of the young Queen Elizabeth in the season five premiere of The Crown. Foy reprised the character again in the final episode of season six. Her performance earned her another nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Foy also appeared in the 2023 drama film All of Us Strangers, for which she was nominated for another BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.

Foy portrayed writer Helen Macdonald in the biographical drama film H Is for Hawk, which premiered at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival in August 2025. For the film, Foy was honoured by Zurich Film Festival with a Golden Eye Award in September 2025.

Foy and Richard E. Grant are set to lead the black comedy period film Savage House, which completed filming in early 2024. Foy will play Polly Thompson in The Magic Faraway Tree, a film adaptation of Enid Blyton's book series; principal photography began in June 2024. In October 2025, Deadline announced that Foy was cast in Ink, an upcoming film adaptation of James Graham's play directed by Danny Boyle.

Personal life

Foy married actor Stephen Campbell Moore in 2014. They have a daughter. They announced their separation in February 2018.

In 2021, Foy was targeted by a stalker who sent her more than 1,000 emails in one month and turned up at her house. The stalker pleaded guilty in November 2022 and received a suspended sentence pending repatriation to the United States.

Acting credits

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Claire Foy

References

References

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