Claire Foy Biography

Claire Foy or Claire Elizabeth Foy was born on 16 April 1984 in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England, as the youngest child of David and Caroline Foy.  Her older siblings are her brother Robert and sister Gemma.

She spent her initial years in Manchester and Leeds before her family had to shift to Longwick for her father's job as a Rank Xerox salesman. Her mother worked in the pharmaceuticals industry. Her parents separated when she was 8 years old. Her father remarried and has a daughter from the second marriage.

Her maternal grandparents—James Stimpson and Mary J. Kavanagh—are Irish and came from Dublin and Kildare.

While in grade school, she began doing Irish dancing and continued with it for a number of years. At 12, she joined Aylesbury High School.

She pursued drama and film studies from Liverpool John Moores University and followed it with a one-year post graduate course at Oxford School of Drama. She graduated from there in 2007.

While honing her acting skills at the Oxford, Claire Foy appeared in various plays like Top Girls, Watership Down, Easy Virtue and Touched.

She made her screen debut by playing the role of Julia in the pilot episode of BBC Three’s fantasy drama Being Human in 2008.

In 2008, she made her professional stage debut with Royal National Theatre’s (London) productions DNA and The Miracle. The year also saw her landing the role of the protagonist, Amy Dorrit, in BBC One miniseries series Little Dorrit. Her work got her a lot of attention and won her a nomination in the RTS Award. She also played the role of Chloe Webster in an episode of BBC One’s Doctors.

In 2009, Claire Foy appeared in an episode of the television series 10 Minute Tales and the following year was cast in the role of chain-smoker Adora Belle Dearheart in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal (2 episodes). The year also saw her portraying the character of Hannah Carter in the BBC Three television movie Pulse.

Between 2010 and 2012, she was seen as Lady Persephone Towyn in the 9 episodes of BBC One’s grand period drama series Upstairs Downstairs.

In between, in 2011, she made her big screen debut by starring in a horror adventure film Season of the Witch. In this supernatural action-adventure film, she played the role of Anna. Her other film credits this year include playing the lead role of Dawn in the drama film Wreckers.

In 2011 and 2012, her television work included acting in Channel 4’s Middle East political miniseries The Promise (as Erin Matthews); BBC Two’s war romance drama film based on Sarah Waters' novel The Night Watch (as Helen Giniver); Channel 4’s comedy drama movie Hacks (as Kate Loy) and finally the BBC Two miniseries White Heat (as Charlotte Pew).

In 2013, she made her stage comeback and played the role of Lady Macbeth in the play Macbeth which was performed at the Trafalgar Studios.

In 2014, she appeared in a couple of films – as Sonya Karp in the fantasy comedy horror film Vampire Academy and as Paola Gourley in the political drama film Rosewater

In 2014, on television, she was seen essaying the role of Kate Balfour in NBC’s action-adventure drama series Crossbones and Helen Bentwich in ITV1’s miniseries The Great War: The People's Story. She then also narrated the television movie documentary Frankenstein and the Vampyre: A Dark and Stormy Night.

Her next film was the 2015 comedy drama The Lady in the Van; however, what brought her tremendous critical acclaim this year was her portrayal of the ill-fated Queen Anne Boleyn in BBC Two’s miniseries Wolf Hall which was a six-part adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s two novels (Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies).

Additionally, for her work in Wolf Hall, she also received a nomination for Best Actress at the 2016 British Academy Television Awards.

In 2016 and 2017, Claire Foy earned even more praise and international recognition for her portrayal of the young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of Peter Morgan's Netflix biographical drama series The Crown. Later (in 2020), she once again played the role in an episode of the fourth season of the series.

Her performance was lauded with a Golden Globe Award, 2 Primetime Emmy Awards and 2 Screen Actors Guild Award. Additionally, she also won a nomination at the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress.

In 2017, she essayed the role of Diana Cavendish, wife of the Robin Cavendish who suffered from polio at the age of 28, in the biographical drama film Breathe.

In 2018, she appeared in another biographical film First Man wherein she was cast in the role of astronaut Neil Armstrong’s wife Janet Armstrong. Her work won her nominations at the Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards in the best supporting actress category.

The year 2018 also saw her playing the role of a mental institution patient Sawyer Valentini in Steven Soderbergh's psychological thriller Unsane and vigilante Lisbeth Salander in the crime action-thriller The Girl in the Spider's Web. Her television appearance this year was limited to an episode of Saturday Night Live wherein she appeared as herself.

In 2019, she once again returned to stage as W in the The Old Vic theatre production Lungs.

In 2021, her film releases include the biographical comedy drama film, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (as Emily Richardson-Wain) and a mystery thriller film titled My Son (as Joan Richmond).

On television, she executive produced and starred in the three-part historical drama series A Very British Scandal which was about the events surrounding the notorious divorce of Duke and Duchess of Argyll during the 1960s. In the miniseries she was cast in the role of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll.

She is next working on Sarah Polley’s drama film Women Talking which is based on Miriam Toews’s novel of the same name.

She has also been cast in the role of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in the drama series Doomsday Machine. The limited series which is based on Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s book Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination is being developed by HBO.

Claire Foy married actor Stephen Campbell Moore in the year 2014 and the couple have a daughter by the name of Ivy Rose Moore. The couple separated after just few years of marriage in 2018.