Kristin Scott Thomas: I’m not stepping into Helen Mirren's shoes as Queen...mine are new

 
Acting royalty: Dame Kristin Scott Thomas will star in a new West End production of The Audience (Picture: Benjamin McMahon for Vogue)
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When Dame Kristin Scott Thomas begins playing the Queen in the West End next month, it is not only the monarch’s shoes she has to worry about stepping into - there’s Dame Helen Mirren’s, too.

But Dame Kristin, who has never seen Dame Helen in the role, says she will be making it her own - right down to the shoes and costumes themselves, which will be new.

The play, The Audience, dramatises a series of meetings between the monarch and her prime ministers.

Dame Helen starred as the Queen in the original West End version, winning best actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the Oliviers in 2013.

She is now reprising the part in a Broadway production of the show, which has been well received.

When asked if she was nervous about following on from Dame Helen, at the Apollo Theatre, Dame Kristin said: “Actually, not at all.”

Seeing double: Kristin Scott Thomas as the Queen (Picture: Jason Bell)

In an interview with Vogue, to be published on Thursday, she added: “I see this as my interpretation of the Queen, and I certainly don’t want to step in to her [Mirren’s] shoes literally. I am having all new costumes made for me.”

Writer Peter Morgan, who has updated his play for the new run, said: “This part is like a dress. You want it to fit the person wearing it.

“There are things Kristin feels comfortable saying as the Queen that Helen wouldn’t.

“She never saw Helen in the play and is therefore only focused on her own interpretation.”

Dame Kristin, 54, has starred in films including Four Weddings And A Funeral and The English Patient. Her latest film is Suite Française, released on Friday.

Royal: Dame Helen Mirren as the Queen (Picture: AP Photo/Boneau/Bryan-Brown, Johan Persson)

But she is more comfortable in the theatre world, explaining: “I adore being part of a team. No waiting in trailers, no being bored to death doing retakes. It’s a tightrope walk every night and we all have to be there together.”

The actress, who won critical acclaim for her role in Electra at the Old Vic last year, also said she was thrilled to have been made a Dame in the New Year’s honours list.

“Awards are very nice, but you can be nominated and nominated, and nothing much happens,” she said.

“While this is really thrilling - not just for me but for my mum and my children and my uncle in the Royal Navy, this makes them all so proud.”

Dame Kristin, who was born in Cornwall and attended London’s Central School of Drama, said: “I knew I was an actress even when I was tiny. I was playing cowboys and Indians with my brothers and sisters and when I got shot I remember thinking, now is this how one would really fall?”

Dame Kristin moved to Paris at 19 and built up a career in French cinema as well as Hollywood films.

She was married to a Frenchman and brought up her three children in Paris. She said: “I’m always being regarded as ‘other’. I’m British in Europe, and European in Britain.”

The April issue of Vogue goes on sale Thursday. The Audience is at the Apollo Theatre from April 21

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