Reigning Supreme

She shot to stardom with her mesmerising performance in The Crown. So where does Vanessa Kirby go from here? Straight to Hollywood. Martha Hayes meets the Brit actress to talk fame, fate and filming with Tom Cruise

- Martha Hayes

 

​​​​​​Midway through lunch at The National Theatre’s riverfront cafe, Vanessa Kirby is distracted by a man walking past our table. Startled is probably more apt; her head turning, her piercing blue eyes following him urgently through the crowd, as though she’s spotted an old flame. And in a way, she has. ‘Is that Ben Miles?’ she enquires, squinting. ‘He looks… different. I don’t want to go and hug him in case it’s not him. Why’s he in a suit? No… it’s not him.’ She’s referring, of course, to the actor who portrayed Group Captain Peter Townsend in the first season of Netflix’s award-winning historical drama The Crown. He was the dashing divorcee with whom Kirby’s Princess Margaret fell hopelessly in love; theirs was the ill-fated union her sister the Queen (Claire Foy) refused to consent to. The storyline and her scene-stealing, career-defining performance cemented the 30-year-old’s status as the beating heart of the series, and won her a BAFTA earlier this year.

Kirby is visibly relieved she didn’t just gallop across the cafe shouting, ‘Peter Townsend!’ ‘That’s so something I would do,’ she admits. ‘I get myself into some embarrassing situations. I’m a liability most of the time. I need to learn how to self-edit. My dad is always like, “I think you need media training urgently.”’ She really doesn’t; and I’m glad she hasn’t because the Wimbledon-born actress wouldn’t be half as much fun. And for fans of