Claire Foy never saw Sugabov coming.
How could she have? The British actress — who won an Emmy for her raw, interior portrayal of the young Queen Elizabeth II, who embodies every desire and dream of her duty on The Crown Season 2 — was finishing up a Q&A after her keynote lecture late Thursday at SXSW London when an excited man from the audience shouted for the microphone.
“I’m here!”
Foy, who had been a jolly sport all night, full of laughter and self-deprecating British humour, gestured to the conductor holding the microphone to hand him over.
“Yes?” she asked, smiling expectantly.
“Claire Foy, it’s so nice to see yourself as yourself and not act,” said the man, who I later learned was Sugabov, a pop culture presenter from east London. “You have a beautiful soul and I really love your energy.”
Foy let out a guffaw, or more like a “whoop!” A sound of surprise and astonishment that rarely, if ever, emanates from a human being – like a crow that has just found a treasure trove of garbage to eat and wants to broadcast it to the world.
“That’s what I mean, your beauty is confusing me at this point!” said Sugabov, who had his name on a rhinestone mesh around his neck and was filming at the same time while asking seemingly any question he could think of to keep the interaction going.
“So, what are the everyday things you still do, like being a star now?” He said this, and also praised the two giant rhinestone brooches pinned to her tuxedo jacket, calling her a “very elegant woman.”
Foy, the professional, tried to keep up, responding to the compliments and saying she does all the things normal people do, before Sugabov asked another inquiry, about what her guilty pleasures are and what she likes to buy in the “cheaper end of things”, such as Tesco supermarkets.
“I know what goes on there and I don’t shop there anymore,” Foy said with a wink. (She used to work as a cashier at Tesco).
An usher had crouched down next to Sugabov, gently signaling that it was time to hand over the microphone, but Sugabov wasn’t finished. He wanted to know her favorite lunch on set.
Foy never made it seem like she couldn’t handle the barrage. “I have a lot of snacks. I only eat 100 percent dark chocolate, which most people find really disgusting,” she said.
“No, you have to be healthy!” Sugabov said, as if they were the only two people in this makeshift auditorium inside the church. Foy agreed that she needed to be healthy. “You look good!” Sugabov continued. “And it’s worth it, because your skin is tea!”
Foy objected that she was wearing too much makeup, changed the subject, and recommended everyone start gardening. Then she perhaps got into a bit of gardening talk, explaining that she’d started using MiracleGrow, as Sugabov peppered her with more questions about her summer plans.
“No one cares about this!” Foy said as he dissolved into laughter. “I’m feeding my plants for the first time ever, and it makes me feel like an adult, I guess. And I’m talking to them.”
At this point, the guide was practically trying to wrestle the microphone away, said moderator Clarice Loughrey, a film critic for The IndependentAt the same time, he tried to end the conversation – but Sugabov was not deterred.
“Okay, Claire Foy, my name is Sugabov, and I add love to popular culture because a lot of artists suffer from depression and I think it’s time to show artists like you that we love them and see your personality, because you are a real star, Claire Foy!”
She laughed again in surprise, perhaps thinking it was over.
But it wasn’t like that!
“And before I go, I’ll sing something to you because I have to go. I’m late!” Sujabav announced.
Foy’s jaw dropped in disbelief, but she went with him.
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll find someone like you,” Sugabov began, somewhat in tune with Adele’s song “Someone Like You” and so surprisingly loud that Foy, like the rest of the audience, practically fell out of her chair laughing.
“I wish nothing but the best, for you, too!”
Foy clapped and swayed as Sugabov made his way down the aisle toward the stage, when suddenly security guards and ushers standing on the outskirts of the room sprang into action. “‘Don’t forget me!’ I beg / I remember you said…”
All he wanted to do was get Foy to join the duo, which she did because, well, when she was at SXSW London, right?
“Sometimes I laugh and sometimes…. Is there something else instead?” The Emmy winner sang with some shyness, allowing the moment to end brilliantly.
Suddenly — or perhaps it was because the guards and ushers were about to pounce — Sugabov announced that he had to run and get an Uber, speeding down the aisle and out of the church. (Hollywood Reporter She later confirmed that SXSW had recovered the microphone, and that Sugabov was telling the truth — within minutes, he had jumped into an Uber.)
“With artificial intelligence taking over and encouraging a little humanity, I think it’s important to see the characters and celebrate the stars for who they are and how they are,” Sugabov later said. THR By email. “I’m disappointed by the number of PRs in the UK film industry [who] It’s the opposite of fun!
However, during her speech Foy proved to be the opposite of anti-fun, often drawing hearty laughter from the audience.
It’s here at SXSW London for its premiere Savage housea dark 18th-century satire co-starring Richard E. Grant about a family of social climbers. Comedy is scarier than drama, she said, because you have no idea if anyone will find it funny until they watch it. “So, it made me feel more vulnerable, actually, weirdly, doing things that were supposed to be funny, because what if they weren’t?!” She said to big laughs.
She also spoke courageously about it The crownWhich will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year. What did Foy think defines Queen Elizabeth II? The actress noted her “simplicity” and added: “I don’t think she was a very complicated woman. I think her life was incredibly complicated.”
meaning? “I think she was not expecting to become queen, and when she became queen, it coincided with her father’s death,” Foy said. “That does something to someone, when you have that kind of bereavement and then the greatest responsibility you could ever imagine.” If young Elizabeth had her way, she would spend all her time outdoors with her dogs and horses.
“Stephen Daldry once said something about the fact that she was an ordinary woman who became extraordinary because of all the ideas people offered her,” Foy said. She added that the most important thing was not to dismiss the Queen as “ordinary.”
The talk covered her entire career, incl We are all strangersGhost Story starring Andrew Scott. “Of all the things I’ve done, this is the thing that moves people the most,” she said.
Some news was revealed about Danny Boyle’s upcoming movie inka film about the rise of the Murdoch empire, starring Guy Pearce as Rupert and Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb, the editor he employed in the late 1960s and early 1970s to revamp it. The sun And turn it into a popular newspaper.
Foy plays Jules, a complex character written for the film “because there were no women!” Foy joked, then corrected herself.
“No, women were around in 1969, but they didn’t have very strong careers,” she said. The actress said she read a lot of books about female journalists who didn’t get recognition, but who “made their way into the boys’ club that was journalism.” She added that the film “would have suffered if it had not had some sort of tribute to these women and a representation of the importance of this influence on Fleet Street in the news that we can see today.”
Shortly thereafter, she was asking a question about her Louboutin heels, which was impossible to ignore.
The red-soled shoes were provided by her hair stylist. “I’m too short for all the clothes,” Foy said with a laugh. “This isn’t necessarily a choice; it’s more of a need.” “The pants might look good if I had longer legs.”
Will she be able to walk out of the theater in it? Foy said it would be anyone’s guess. But once a She sang a duet with Sugabov, got to her feet and quickly returned to her car.
