Why Claire Foy Is On Way to Becoming Hollywood Royalty

Considering she’s a fairly recent import to Hollywood, almost everyone seems to know Claire Foy.

If you have a Netflix account you probably know her from The Crown, a period piece starring Foy as Queen Elizabeth II. Her star is on the rise with recent roles in First Man as Janet Armstrong, famed astronaut Neil Armstrong’s wife, and as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, an action-packed thriller.

Foy opened up to GQ about the perception about her breakthrough: “I’ve been working for like 11 years. I feel like my first job will always be my first job and the most mind-blowing kind of experience. I just feel like I’m doing the same thing that I’ve been doing for a long time lately. It’s just interesting to see how, from the outside, the perception of who you are and what you can do, or what you do for a living, is available to much more people. That they now have invested interest in what they think you are or your career is. It’s interesting, but I know how it works, so it doesn’t surprise me, really.”

But of all the characters she’s played, Lisbeth Salander might be a career highlight. “She’s so nonjudgmental. In the books and films and in society, people continually try to put her in a box,” said Foye of what she loves about the role. “They’ll say she’s gay, she’s straight, she’s bisexual, she’s androgynous, she’s not feminine, she’s just trying to look like a man, she’s not clever, and then it turns out she’s a genius.”