The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby talks Princess Margaret’s sadness and saying goodbye

SHE may have had the most glamorous clothes and fetching suitors, but Princess Margaret’s life was marked by darkness.

THE royal engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle couldn’t have come at a better time for The Crown’s second season.

With interest in the British royal family bursting at the seams, what better way to satiate that appetite than to plonk down in front of the telly and drink in the opulence of Netflix’s historical drama?

Amid the fever of Harry and Meghan’s pending nuptials, it must not be forgotten that they have Princess Margaret to thank for the relatively smooth sailing of their courtship.

As the first season of The Crown detailed, Margaret was madly in love with Peter Townsend, but, in 1953, the government and the Queen forbade the match due to his divorce status. She would later go on to marry Anthony Armstrong-Jones, a commoner photographer whose own parents had divorced.

Margaret’s marriage was an unhappy and tempestuous one and ended in divorce 16 years later. While it was stunningly scandalous at the time, and the first time a senior member of the family had divorced in centuries, it also established the legacy for royal divorce.

Now, three of the Queen’s four children — Charles, Andrew and Anne — are all divorced. So, 64 years after Margaret was denied her first happily-ever-after, Meghan Markle’s former marital status is merely uttered in the context of praising the royals for being “modern”.

“How good is it that she became such an advocate of change but such a shame that she didn’t get to do it herself,” Vanessa Kirby told news.com.au.

Kirby, who plays Princess Margaret in The Crown, said she thought Harry and Meghan’s engagement was great and that there had been a lot of national excitement about it.

Always the bridesmaid.

The 30-year-old Brit said she “didn’t have any interest” in the royals before signing on for the role but since then has developed a deep appreciation for them, especially the Queen.

“Instead of them being these public figures that don’t seem real, I view them as human beings now, and a family that’s gone through a lot and didn’t have a choice,” she said.

“When you learn about them, it gave me a huge amount of respect and empathy for them that I didn’t have before. I feel much warmer towards them now, and Harry and William and all of them, I feel much prouder that they’re a part of us.”

In the new season, debuting next week on December 8, Margaret is coming off the wretched emotional low of last year’s finale which culminated in the tense confrontation between the Princess and her sister.

After her heartbreak, she’s in a darker place, despairingly captured in a minute-long scene in which the character’s raw grief was on full display as she railed and destroyed things in her private chambers, all set to Ella Fitzgerald’s melancholic Angel Eyes.

“I always imagined what Margaret would be like on her own,” Kirby said. “I always imagined these really late, dark nights with herself — we knew she drank a lot and she’s alone in a house with her mum who’s slightly detached since her father died.

“We wanted to show how dark she gets, how difficult it is for her, and her sadness — you don’t to see that expressed often, what she’s like when she doesn’t have to pretend. How brittle, aloof and cold she can be because she doesn’t want to show that vulnerability underneath.”

Kirby says Goode is “the best thing ever”.

But it’s not all doom and gloom for the somewhat tragic royal, not for a while, anyway. This season also sees the introduction of would-be husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, played by the thinking woman’s heart-throb, Matthew Goode, an actor Kirby described, with affection, as “so funny” and “the best thing ever”.

Goode was cast two weeks before the real-life Armstrong-Jones’ death, the event of which led him to ponder, according to Kirby, “Do you think he heard the news [of my playing him]?”.

Kirby said finding the right actor to fill the role was difficult because Margaret is such a force that it required an actor that could feasibly match her.

“Matt Goode just did it straight away because he’s such a presence and he’s a strong, vibrant person. He’s magic. We were really lucky the chemistry worked — he’s a great friend,” she said.

The Crown has been Kirby’s most high-profile, international role yet, despite enjoying consistent acclaim on stage for performances including as Stella in the Young Vic production of A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster.

Her theatre career has included productions of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Miller and Chekhov. Her parents weren’t actors but counted renowned thespian Vanessa Redgrave as a family friend.

But Kirby’s next role will be a departure. She is set to be Tom Cruise’s love interest in the sixth instalment of the Mission Impossible franchise. At 30, she is 26 years younger than Cruise, a noted and continuing trend of increasingly larger age gaps the A-lister shares with his on-screen romantic partners.

Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones announcing their engagement on 27th February 1960. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

When Kirby signed on for The Crown, she knew it was a limited engagement. The plan was always to keep the cast for two seasons and then replace them with older actors as the story moved on to later decades. Olivia Colman has been announced as the next Elizabeth but no clues yet as to who will fill Margaret’s shoes.

Whoever it’ll be, Kirby said she’s “so excited for her”. The only advice she has for her replacement is to have the best time because “she’s going to get to go on such a good ride”.

She said going into season two was bittersweet, knowing it would be last time.

“We filmed the last scene and they brought out champagne and disco lights and did it so sweetly.

“Claire [Foy] was so knackered and I was just bawling my eyes out. I was clinging on to my wig and just sobbing into it.

“It was such a gift so it felt like an end of an era for me.”

The Crown season two will drop on Netflix on Friday, December 8 at 7pm AEDT.

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