[Princess Margaret] was always trying to radicalize things.

I still get stage fright horribly. I still get nervous. I do tend to find when you're playing characters, often - just for the time you're playing them - there are sides of your personality that get stronger because you draw on them more.

I really enjoyed stepping into that side of [princess Margaret] and being silly and naughty and fun.

At the same time, [princess Margaret] had a fragility and an insecurity in who she was and her position, because her sister had always got the education ever since David [Edward VIII] abdicated.

I watched tons of archive footage of princess Margaret and listened to the music she loved; that was really immersive and brilliant.

It was always said you couldn't have two sisters less alike. In a way [princess] Elizabeth was always internalizing everything and [princess] Margaret was always externalizing everything, so that became the basis. The storyline becomes about these two sisters: they're fighting for their position or trying to establish their identity in the world alongside each other and in relation to this establishment which only those two were a part of.

[Queen Elizabeth] is just the granny queen! She's our granny queen who shakes people's hands!