I watched her do speeches, but the only footage we could find of [princess] Margaret was archive footage, which was of her public presentation of herself.

That's exactly how I felt. So getting to suddenly know this young [princess] Margaret, who had this extraordinary life - it was sad and tragic and difficult and sort of astonishing and getting to know her young self was amazing because it completely defied all my expectations.

[Princess Margaret] was always trying to radicalize things.

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.

I remember somebody saying something to me about Frost/Nixon, when Anthony Hopkins does his famous speech, and the difference in the way Anthony did it was to dramatize, essentially, what was a documentary-style version of that speech. I remember someone saying to me, "There is artistic liberty."

I watched her do speeches, but the only footage we could find of [princess] Margaret was archive footage, which was of her public presentation of herself.

I started to really enjoy the fact that [princess] Margaret was an exhibitionist. Even on a day-to-day basis, Margaret's costumes were always so much more dramatic and bold than Elizabeth's were.