Claire Foy won't let her role as Queen Elizabeth II in 'The Crown' "define" her.

Claire Foy

Claire Foy

The 34-year-old actress played the monarch in the Netflix drama for two seasons, and although the part thrust her into the spotlight, she's determined not to become pigeon-holed by the iconic role.

She said: "I don't feel like I'm defined by playing Queen Elizabeth. It's a huge honour that people liked that character and therefore see me as that character. So, I'm not trying to actively go against that."

And the star says she's "really really proud" of the time she spent working on the period drama, but has no fear when it comes to taking on new roles, as she knows she needs to be "selfish" and take on jobs she wants to do.

She added to People magazine: "My career is only for me, really. I can't do it for anybody else and so the choices and decisions I make are purely based on what I want to do. That's it really. It's a really selfish thing."

Claire and her co-star Matt Smith - who played Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip - have been recast for the upcoming third season as the show skips ahead to a later time in the Queen's life, with the monarch instead being played by Olivia Coleman, and Prince Philip being played by Tobias Menzies.

Meanwhile, although Claire is proud of her work on the show, the programme hasn't been without controversy as the beauty was involved in a gender pay gap scandal which meant she was paid considerably less than Matt, despite having a more prominent role.

The 'First Man' star admitted she was "deeply hurt" by the scandal, which was supposedly caused by Matt's previous high profile role as the titular time lord in sci-fi show 'Doctor Who'.

She said: "I was deeply hurt by it, because I'd been working on that show for two years. I loved everybody on it. And then I realised, there's been a big, fat, dirty secret that nobody's ever talked about. But then there was also that thing [of being] an inadvertent spokesperson. Why did it have to be me? I could have said nothing. And I think everyone would have preferred that. But I thought, if I do that, I will be cheating myself and all the other women I know."

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