Gillian Anderson put in a lot of work to play Margaret Thatcher on “The Crown”, and it’s officially paid off.
Fresh off her Supporting Actress nominations for both a SAG Award and a Golden Globe, Anderson chats with InStyle about her preparation for the role, including Thatcher’s infamous curtsy while greeting Queen Elizabeth II.
“I was really f**king nervous. At the same time, it’s a wonderful production run by adults who have done it before. They shoot the first two weeks of stuff for any big new character on the soundstages. It was comforting to know that if I sucked, it would be easy to reshoot as opposed to renting a countryside mansion for another day because I was bad,” she explained. “I had an intense scene on my first day of work, and I knew that even if I did my absolute best, I’d probably be a bit more in her shoes, her voice, her everything, a few weeks down the road. It made it easier to have that safety net in case I wasn’t quite there at the beginning.”
But getting that curtsy down was tough for Anderson.
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“In order to do that, one needs good balance and a certain degree of musculature in one’s thighs,” the “X Files” alum said. “I don’t feel like I have particularly strong thighs. I’m not sure I even knew I could do that prior to the scene.”
And the voice was another thing.
“I worked very hard on the voice, specifically. It needed to be a particular pitch and way of talking that felt like it would be natural and grounded somewhere in me, and also one that I could keep consistent.”
Anderson’s co-stars Olivia Colman, Emma Corrin, and Josh O’Connor also earned recognition.
