Both shows earn her royal seal of approval.
Victoria star Jenna Coleman says she’s a fan of Netflix’s own royal drama The Crown, but she’s reluctant to draw comparisons between the two shows.
Both series tackle the British monarchy, just a century or so apart. Yet both shows examine rapidly changing worlds through the eyes of young monarchs, one similarity that Coleman does recognise.
“I watch The Crown because it is brilliant and I love it and it is incredibly well observed and detailed storytelling but I think it is completely different to Victoria,” she explained to Digital Spy and other media. “They are completely different monarchs and it is a completely different time in Britain’s history.
“The similarity is you have two young women taking on a role that they were born into – for the queen in The Crown being queen almost means being imprisoned, in a way, yet in Victoria, ironically being queen for her meant freedom, because of the way she grew up in the Kensington system, the day she became Queen was the day she suddenly became free from it and she didn’t have to answer to anybody.
“This was a girl who grew up sleeping in a camp bed next to her mother, who had never been alone with a man before. I think that is very interesting in terms of the stories of both queens.”
That sense of restriction in The Crown is something that Jenna says she’s experienced working in other period dramas, thus giving Victoria a fresh feeling because it’s so different.
“I have done loads of period drama and I have always proudly worn corsets, but having worn one for seven months for 10 hours a day, psychologically it is incredible what it does,” she recalled. “Because you want to run to set but you only get so far because your lungs can only take in so much oxygen!
“It is really interesting thinking about women in that time who were constantly held and restricted, what it must do [psychologically]. It was society telling you to behave and not run up stairs and I think Victoria is the kind of girl who literally just wants to run in the grass!”
When she’s not binge-watching her former Doctor Who co-star Matt Smith in The Crown, it turns out that Jenna does actually occasionally take time to watch her own Victoria episodes.
“Last year we watched the first series as they aired – the cast all got together each week and went to a different person’s house each time,” she remembered.
“It was quite funny as we would just take the ‘p’ out of each other which was a nice way to do it, but I haven’t this series. I didn’t want to watch it by myself!”
The Crown will soon be in for a huge change of pace when Olivia Colman replaces Claire Foyfor future seasons, so as to allow writer Peter Morgan to move forward in Queen Elizabeth II’s life.
No such change is in the works for Victoria, at least according to the show’s creator Daisy Goodwin earlier in the year.
Victoria: Series Two and Series One & Two box-set are out now on DVD.
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