Claire Foy

Claire Elizabeth Foy was born in Stockport, England, on 16 April 1984 to David Foy and Caroline Stimpson, of partial Irish descent, the youngest of three children. She has an older brother, Robert, and an older sister, Gemma, as well as a younger half sister through her father. She grew up in Manchester and Leeds, and the family later moved to Longwick, Buckinghamshire, for her father's job as a Rank Xerox salesman. Her parents divorced when she was eight.

Foy was educated at Aylesbury High School from the age of 12, until 2002, and later studied drama at Liverpool John Moores University. She also 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. While at the Oxford School of Drama, Foy appeared in the plays Top Girls, Watership Down, Easy Virtue, and Touched. After appearing on television, she made her professional stage debut in DNA and The Miracle, two of a trio of single acts directed by Paul Miller at the Royal National Theatre in London (the third was Baby Girl).

Foy starred as the protagonist, Amy Dorrit, in the BBC series Little Dorrit. She was nominated for an RTS Award. She went on to appear in the TV film Going Postal and the horror adventure film Season of the Witch. Foy also starred in the BBC revival of Upstairs Downstairs as Lady Persephone, and co-starred in the Channel 4 serial The Promise, broadcast in February 2011.

Foy played a lead role, Helen, in the TV movie The Night Watch, which was based on a Sarah Waters novel. She 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.

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 would portray the Queen in middle age, beginning in the third season.

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. In 2020, Foy reprised the role of the young Queen Elizabeth II in the eighth episode of The Crown's 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.

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 has landed at HBO for development with the network closing a deal on 8 February 2022, following a multiple-outlet bidding war. In November 2022, Foy reprised her role of the young Queen Elizabeth in the season five premiere of The Crown. In November 2023, Foy again portrayed the young Queen Elizabeth in the final episode of The Crown. Her performance earned her another nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.