That external struggle mirrors the struggle of this life force of energy that [princess Margaret] was.

My dad is a big extrovert - he's a doctor - but he always loved [William] Shakespeare and he took us to tons of theater.

I would argue [princess] Margaret is the tragic figure of the century.

It's this amazing combination to play, really, of somebody who's actually very fragile and hasn't really grown up properly yet - at least in a healthy environment - and has suffered immense loss with her dad - like that line where she says, [in the words of her father [King George VI], "Yes, 'Elizabeth is my pride but Margaret's my joy." She holds onto it!

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

Everybody has an image of [princess Margaret], to a certain extent. But I felt it would have been harder if we were playing them as they are now. In a way, I don't know how much of a living memory we as a collective have of them in the '50s, when Margaret was 21 and this sort of Elizabeth Taylor. You don't think of your grandparents as being teenagers. You just can't - your brain just can't go there!

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